Turbulence
by Photojourney
Summary: In another time, Lambo dreams of rows upon rows of viridescent isolation tanks. In another world, I-Pin remembers all the last words their siblings spoke before they slept in icy caskets. When the skies themselves have fallen and all hope seems lost, they travel back in time - twenty years, to be exact. (time-travel, GEN) [HIATUS]
1. blue, blue sky

**GENERAL WARNING:** violence, language, GEN, a fair amount of angst, aftermath of the manga

**Author's Commentary:** and here we are!

translations for different languages are at the bottom of the page. thanks for any favorites, follows, or reviews. (:

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Katekyo Hitman Reborn!

* * *

On a quiet morning in Namimori, the strip of a city alley between two paint-splattered buildings is awakened by an explosion of thick, red smoke. A blast of wind accompanies the crimson fog, whipping past the sky striped with clotheslines and the cracked windows of abandoned rooms. The redness seeps into the marbled ground and scares the creatures lurking near the gutters - great swaths of it devour sections of the surrounding area like clouds.

Then, a second blast of air slices through the smoke. The red fades into the colorful graffiti lines on the walls, lifts off the rusted doorknobs, and dissipates into the blue, blue sky and the black, black stones. The air strikes itself with vibrant, vibrating energy, enveloped in the echoes of a lightning storm. Green sparks draw spiraling lines around the ropes strung across the alley width, snapping them in pairs and showers of light.

From the alley comes a harsh, ragged noise, like a great lungful of air after twenty years of trying not to drown - and a man staggers to his feet, knees weak and weary and hands scrabbling against the wall in front of him. He takes another breath, and then releases it, and then does the same thing again, over and over.

Heart racing in his stomach, the man's olive eye flickers in all directions. Dirt there, dust there, reddish rust on those creaking stairs, broken glass, the dots darting across his vision are darker than ashes over brimstone, and above - oh god, it's the sky, and when was the last time he ever saw it so _bright_?

He pushes himself off from the wall and tears his gaze away. "I-Pin, where are you?" he manages through his gasps. There was a fire, he knows - since when was there never a fire? - but the last lingering image, before the engulfment of smoke, is only a flicker of ebony hair that could belong to a body just as much as a person. "I-Pin?"

No reply comes, not after two or three or five seconds. The man bows his horned head, closes his eyes, and prays to every deity above (and he really isn't one to pray, but this can be an exception) that I-Pin is near and alive. If she isn't, he doesn't know if - he doesn't know if he'll be able to make it, or if he'll even - if he'll even-

"Here," someone says. He whips around to see a familiar figure duck her head out of a shattered window mere inches off the ground. Her boots crunch against the debris - one of the most comforting sounds he's ever heard. "I'm here," she says, equally as breathless. "Still alive, see?"

His leather jacket scrapes against the building as he leans against it. "Thank god, I-Pin," he says, cherishing the sight of her at that moment. "Thank god, we almost..." _Didn't make it._

But it doesn't matter anymore - because they did, didn't they? They really did.

She grins and steps over the windowsill, movements cat-like and fluid as water. Her long braid swings up and down behind her. Her face is opened up and beams at him with overwhelming triumph, chasing away the little scars across her cheeks, all the dreams turned sour. "We made it, Lambo. It worked. Can you believe it?"

Lambo can't help but chuckle; relief spreads inside him like a wildfire. "Look at the sky. It's so damn blue."

"Beautiful," I-Pin says, arms snaking forward to tug him upright. Her dark eyes trace the outline of the heavens. "We've missed this."

There is a sudden yearning rising up inside of him. It takes him by surprise, because he's not sure where it came from (or maybe it was there all along), but he cannot suppress the tremendous desire spilling from his chest in locks and masses. There is a craving to meet the sky, a sort of ravenous need to see what was left behind that he cannot suppress any longer. "Let's go," he says, and like always, I-Pin understands.

As one, they jump into the air, and a blast of I-Pin's wind-like flames pushes against their heels. They leap from wall to wall, weaving in and out and in and out, until the apartment rooftops come into view and they are suspended in flight - in glorious motion. They are trapped in the impossible moment between rise and fall, up and down, in and out.

_As if time could stop-_

Lambo sees the jagged lines of city buildings in the distance, the flashing lights and towering offices, pinpricks of auburn trees and warehouse rooftops. He sees the distant whites and browns of the surrounding neighborhoods and slopes of rippling hills. He sees the labyrinth of alleyways leading out into the world, and far off against the horizon, sunlight glancing off the white building nestled around rows upon rows of houses.

And Lambo hears the wind ribboned around his body like a cocoon, feels the hair whipping against his face. He swallows something harsh inside his mouth and cherishes the peculiar rhythm in his heart as it gets wrenched away from his grasp.

The man is barely aware of his feet hitting the cement. He drinks in the sight before him as if he were something parched. "Namimori," he whispers.

I-Pin's voice wavers. "Oh."

Something constricts inside his chest. He shakes his head. "Oh, god. Look. Look at this."

"It's real. It's _real_. There's the hospital, down there. There's the clothing store Mama used to go to." I-Pin points down at the familiar shapes. "She got all her dresses there. Remember? She looked beautiful in those."

He laughs and embraces the childish feeling. "And there's the ice cream store we used to go to. Remember that? We loved that place." His eyes roam over the landscape for a second longer before locking onto the bleached building. The pristine whiteness is the same color of order, of normality and boredom and shining tonfas. "There's the middle school, over there. See that?" Their brothers were there when the era of chaos began, wrapping them in their boss's light and all the pandemonium surrounding it.

His companion draws closer to him. "We never thought we'd see this place again," she says. "Did we?"

"Never," he breathes.

Their siblings are down there. Their family is down there, living in a round, peaceful world - so unlike their world, flat and jagged around the edges, where some people fall off. So unlike their time, which is fraught with disaster and horrible forthcoming, worse enough to leave them with this last chance-

With that thought, the blissful feeling of awe is swept aside by the pressures of _death_ and _mafia_ and _you're never safe anywhere_, and Lambo lets his expression slide into something solemn. I-Pin's eyes grow sharp, wide-eyed wonder forgotten. They can't stand here forever, not while time - reality - is life's harsh mistress. A new course of action is needed. "The plan," I-Pin prompts him, all business.

He closes his eyes, shutting out the city view.

Step one - "Check the date," he says. "We should be a few months earlier than we wanted. Hopefully, it still leaves us time to complete the operation. Worst case scenario is if the bazooka truly malfunctioned. We need to make sure."

She gives a curt nod. "Let's avoid the Sector. Then, make contact with Tsuna and the others. They should know that we're here."

Lambo's eyes flicker open and he meets her gaze (are you ready?), a strange sense of trepidation...

* * *

...pooling into his stomach. He stands very still, trying not to breathe, not to think. There are butterflies in his hands, earthquakes in his fingers, and bulls running rampant through his mind. Inwardly, his body is a wreck, but he feigns a lax posture on the outside. "This is a bad idea," he mutters after a while, speaking in French. "We both know it."

"Oh, yes, it's a horrible idea," I-Pin says with great cheer. They stand together, as one, on a rooftop several houses down from where Tsuna (their living breathing breathtaking hope) and the others (their siblings and fathers and mothers and friends) live. She crouches down, her fingers scraping the tiles, while Lambo stands behind her and tries his damnedest not to punch something to quiet his pounding heart.

She turns her head, a smile forever carved into her lips. "So nervous, Lambo."

"We're both nervous," he points out. "We shouldn't be doing this. It's not worth it."

The assassin presses her fingertips together - a contemplative gesture. "Actually, we don't have much of a choice. If we don't get this over with, it'll be a distraction once we start our hunt." Her eyes flicker to the side. "We need shelter, too, as well as food. If we hadn't been rushed, this wouldn't be _necessary_, but some things don't go the way we want." (Understatement of the century.) "And we'd rather not hide the threat, would we?"

"Of course we wouldn't," says Lambo. "But there's more than that." So much more than that. He doesn't have to explain to her what, because they already know, from shared pasts and experiences and things they'd rather not be haunted with.

Her smile twists into something like the nightly moon, or the side of a perfect pebble. "Yes."

"We're not prepared," her partner confesses, mostly for himself. "Not for any of this."

"So pretend that we are," I-Pin suggests. "Fake it."

"We _can't_. It was enough just seeing the city. We won't - there's no way we'll take this well."

She reaches out a hand, and he clasps it. "Fake it," she repeats. "Over and over, until it works. They can't know what we want to say, no matter what, no matter how hard it may be. Our past is not theirs. And then we'll be fine - you'll see."

Lambo closes his eyes and seizes the imaginary coil of Lightning flames, winding it around his heart, trying to strengthen it. "Yeah. Yeah, sure."

I-Pin stands up, and together, they face the blue sky. Something calmer begins to take control of his thoughts. He takes a deep breath.

But _then_, of course, the blue sky is disrupted by the flurry of gunshots, familiar shrieks, and hoarse yells in the distance.

With a hiss, the Lightning Guardian tightens his hold on his flames. "That's not regular training," he says, simultaneously flipping a brass lens off his belt and into his hand. He lifts it to his eye, watching the blurred snippets of _black suits running someone shouting silver hair blurred grass some sort of indigestible food and a flash of brown hair along with a little baby in a top hat and a suit_ before lowering it again.

"Your report," I-Pin demands, unfazed by the commotion.

"Enemy famiglia attack," he says. In his mind's eye, he sorts through the fragments of scenes he has just seen through the lens. The symbol of a red fox splashed across a wreath of vines, outlined in gold, stands out in particular. "The Ladro Famiglia. Members are weak, but numerous."

"Ladro, hm?" I-Pin cocks her head, sharp ears listening on on the fight. "Ah, yes, we used them for training practice. Remember it? Those men were crawling all over the place, like ants." Memories flicker beneath her half-lidded eyes. "They weren't much trouble. It didn't matter how many there were - they fell so easily. All we had to do was step on them."

Lambo scoffs. "Never saw the point in fighting them. In a real battle against a mob, the first option is retreat. Who knows what Reborn was thinking."

She smiles, her eyes light up, and her hand slaps the back of his shoulder. "Let's make our debut. We'll help drive the Ladro away, then see what comes after that."

He raises his eyebrows at her, even as the lightning churning through his veins thrums in anticipation. "We're going to help them?"

"We're going to help them," she agrees.

With a sigh, the man lowers his eyebrows and rolls his shoulders. "They won't even need it, though."

"You work with what you get." I-Pin says, her grip tightening. He shifts closer to her in response, and for a second, they stay just like that, hungry flames dancing under their skin. Then, the assassin pulls away with a sharp, wild grin. "See you soon," she says.

In a flash of crimson fire, his partner is gone, whisked away by the wind. He heaves another sigh - she really is too eager sometimes - before letting electricity surge through his legs, pushing him forward in a huge leap across two houses. There, he stops, and narrows a single eye at the gunshots sounding in the distance.

Gunshots mixed with dynamite, he realizes, and his mind makes the smooth connection between explosions and Gokudera Hayato (they might as well be part of the same sentence). The whistling of wind through blades of grass - the sword, Yamamoto Takeshi's sword. Flesh against flesh, fist against the stomach, against the head, and a loud crack as the enemy hits the ground - that's Sasagawa Ryohei. A loud roar of adrenaline...no, that's Sasagawa Ryohei,again. Someone shrieking, that's Sawada Tsunayoshi, and a high-pitched sound - is it I-Pin?

He jumps closer, landing into a smooth crouch in the neighboring backyard. The feathers in his hair tickle the base of his neck. A crow flutters away in a whirl of obsidian from a nearby tree, and his breath rattles in his throat. His gut clenches with an unsettled mess of nerves.

He'll help them, but training practice or not, he won't lengthen the fight. He and I-Pin can no longer afford to take risks by playing with their enemies, no matter how feeble they may seem. So Lambo hops over the fence and kneels in the cover of weeds and dirt mounds, watching the situation in the Sawada household's lawn.

His heart thuds to a stop.

There, right there, _right there_ is Sawada Tsunayoshi, their boss and their brother and their everything, eyes wide and mouth opened in an cry of panic as he takes down mafioso left and right, all while craning his neck to peer at Reborn (shorter and fatter and infant-size) perched a safe ways away on the lamppost. The Sky flames bursting from his palms are so bright, so pure, that something suspiciously warm catches in Lambo's throat.

Tsuna looks so _young_. Lambo doesn't know anything anymore, but he wants to approach him then and there and say something, anything, maybe an apology for starters - until I-Pin's words of warning flash through his mind, and he reels back as if struck by an unseen force.

_They cannot know._

A part of his mind lets out a horrid wail at the unfairness of it all, but the rest of it tells him _no_, Tsuna is being monitored by Reborn, and the Lightning Guardian mustn't interfere with things already under control. He tears his gaze away, teeth gritted and heart clenching, to other areas of his surroundings.

Besides, this family isn't theirs, is it? They're beautiful and bright and all things except their own, because their family is in another world, a future world made up of people they can no longer abandon.

In the bedroom window, a gun flashes in the sunlight. Through the glass of the back door, Lambo can see red flames swirling, mafioso swarming in every corner of the house. He turns his attention back to the window and watches as a mess of silver hair dodges a flurry of bullets, which shoot holes out of the wall behind him.

Hayato is faced with more of the Ladro than the others are - partly because he is cornered in the bedroom, partly because he has no other Guardian to cover him. Even at this age, Lambo knows the Storm Guardian is capable of blasting them all away with his Flame Arrow, but the kid's mind - which is still inexperienced - will feel pressured by the numbers. The worst he'll escape with is a scratch or two or a scrape from a bullet, and even at that point, it's not necessary for Lambo to assist.

But at this point, it's not like he has anything better to do. So he measures the distance between himself and the window with a trained eye, tugs a grenade out of the inside of his jacket, and - with a flowing arm and a smooth motion that's been practiced millions of times before - throws it.

The window shatters upon impact, and smoke explodes as soon as the grenade hits the carpeted floor. In an instant, Lambo is leaping from his hidden position into the jagged hole of glass; he rolls upon touching the carpet, wanting to keep his entrance quiet.

"What the hell?" someone coughs out in the grey haze. Lambo's arm shoots forward, grabs the speaker's skull, and slams it down against his knee. An unconscious body slumps forward onto the bed.

A slim shadow jumps out at him. Judging from his posture and the slight flailing of arms, the mafioso is attacking blind. Amateur's mistake, he thinks as he tugs the intruder forward, letting momentum do its work before landing a precise hit on the nerves at the base of the neck.

"Clear the smoke!" another one shouts. Lambo pays no heed - they won't be able to, and his keen eye can see just fine after adapting to his countless covers of smoke over the years - and catches sight of a familiar shadow, shorter and skinnier than the rest, both arms covering his face.

He smiles. "Hayato, Ladro at two o'clock."

"What?" the voice rasps, striking a chord of nostalgia within him.

"You heard me."

Two thumps and a gasp of surprise later, and a mafioso hits the ground with a thump. "What the hell?" the Storm Guardian snaps. "Who was that?"

Lambo sweeps into action. "Directly ahead, another one," he says in a low voice as two unsuspecting mafioso fall in front of him. Behind him, Hayato stands still for a moment before heeding Lambo's warnings. "Bullet at four o'clock." The man catches another Ladro from behind and smashes her into his boot.

Someone swears, and a gun shoots off, even though the smoke still hasn't cleared. Lambo resists the urge to roll his eyes; no bullet will find its mark in this haze.

"Who are you?" Hayato hisses. "Why are you helping me?"

Lambo doesn't even bother with a smirk (who the hell would see it?). "Hayato, use the Tornado Flame Arrow, six o'clock. You'll take out a few." _And I'll deal with the rest_, he thinks as he eases his muscles into a relative routine, breaking bone and disarming and knocking them out all at once. The thuds of dropping bodies turns into a rhythm, like the steadiness of rain on a weekend afternoon.

He catches a glimpse of red fire in the corner of his eye and steps away from the cannon's path. Hayato's blast leaves a gaping hole in the middle of the smoke - which is fine, he supposes, since the cover is beginning to clear up on its own anyway. "Ladro reinforcements are coming down the hall," he calls, pressing himself against the wall. "Aim at the door, reload and fire at my word. This time, I'll help you."

Hayato whirls around, squinting at the direction of his voice. "Who-?" He peers through the smoke and stiffens at the black suits and guns littered across the floor. "What did you-?"

"Hurry," Lambo urges, brisk but not harsh, as the pounding of footsteps gets closer by the second. Hayato hears it too and readies his bow.

His heart slows in his chest. He gathers up his flames in the palms of his hands, feels it twine around his horns, and melds it together. The electricity casts the smoke in an eerie green light, charging the air with pure energy.

The mafioso burst into the room.

"Now," he says.

Hayato's arrow releases in a blaze of scarlet light and a distant thundering sound.

"_Colpo Elettrico_," Lambo murmurs, and releases his flames...

* * *

...in a burst of blue, shrouding the enemy fire in a warm glow that smothers it into sparks. "How are you holding up, Sasagawa-senpai?" Takeshi calls over his shoulder, a heated wave singing the tips of his hair.

"I've got this handled to the extreme!" the older boy bellows, landing a solid uppercut to a mafioso's jaw - it is accompanied by a crack and a wail of pain.

Takeshi throws his head back and laughs, only to duck down as a bullet whizzes past. "And what about you?" he asks the small figure standing on one of the cabinets. "Are you enjoying-" The flat side of his sword slams into another's side. "-the show, Fon-san?"

Up above, body composed and a serene expression painted across his face, Fon smiles lightly at the Vongola Rain Guardian. "You fight well, Yamamoto-kun, Sasagawa-kun. Unfortunately, Reborn has instructed me not to help due to training purposes."

"Haha, that's alright!" Takeshi exclaims, ever the pardoner. His sword arcs through the air and cuts a gash through one man's chest, and the flames licking at the blade wreath around its wielder in a protective circle. In the midst of the battle, a thought seems to strike him, and he pauses after flicking the dagger out of a particularly brutish-looking guy. "Where's I-Pin? I could've sworn I just saw her."

His question is answered as a small red blur flits across the room, long black braid trailing behind like a whip.

"_Hyaa!_" I-Pin shouts, hurtling toward a Ladro's neck. He spins around, a cry of alarm readied at his lips, but her foot is already slamming into his neck and shipping him off to spiral of oblivion. She lands neatly on the back of her victim.

Fon offers a quick smile. "Next time, I-Pin, don't announce yourself before you strike. It will only warn your adversary of the impending attack. But a good hit, nonetheless."

"Yes, Master!" I-Pin gives a short bow before spurring herself into action.

Behind Takeshi, Ryohei takes a few steps backward and bumps shoulders with his. "There's so many of them!" he shouts over the voices of their attackers. "Where do they keep coming from? This is troublesome to the extreme!"

His friend shrugs. "No clue, really. We can handle this, though!" His chuckle resounds through the clang of sword and steel.

Then, both of them twitch as two of the mafioso bypass their defenses, flames extended toward the baby on the cabinet. Fon's expression doesn't change as he flips off the shelves, one hand lowered to tap at the pressure points of one man's arms while the other goes straight for the temple of the other.

But the mafioso catches the strike with his hand, saving himself from unconsciousness. Fon's eyebrow quirks in minute surprise.

"_Pelle Febbricitante_," the man growls.

His skin glows white hot, and in an instant, Fon is blown away into the opposite wall. He manages to orient himself so his feet land first, but the heat emanating from his opponent's skin makes him pause. "Sun flames?" he murmurs. "Interesting."

A feral grin spreads across the glowing Ladro's face. "Look there, baby," he says, tilting his head toward the windows.

"Stop!" a voice booms, and the mafioso fighting Takeshi and Ryohei pull back to the far corners of the living room. The Guardians' expressions sour at the sight next to the window - a Ladro, powerful enough to give commands to the other men, with I-Pin's head clutched in a vice-like grip in his hands. The young assassin scowls, her arms and legs too short to reach her captor.

The man with the burning skin begins to laugh.

"Oh, I-Pin," Fon says quietly.

I-Pin's eyes widen as the man's hands tighten around her head. "Stand down," he barks. "You move, and I use the same technique as that man there-" He nods to Fon's opponent. "-to burn her to ashes."

Takeshi's gaze darkens in seconds, and beside him, Ryohei bares his teeth with an inaudible rumble in his throat.

The head Ladro sneers and bellows, "Put your weapons down! Arcobaleno, you will do as I say!"

One second, two seconds later, and Takeshi's sword clatters to the ground. Ryohei follows, albei with much more visible aggravation. "You should know that the term you use no longer applies to me," Fon comments, looking for all the world like someone has just stolen a wrapper he was planning on throwing away rather than taken his student hostage (although the Guardians know better).

The other Ladro - second in command, perhaps - leers at the infant, apparently not intimidated by his apathetic front. "You talk back and we kill the China boy," he hisses, mistaking I-Pin's gender (as most were wont to do). "And then the little _sheep boy_ hiding in the other room. You don't talk back to us."

Fon meets his gaze without flinching and a smile on his face. "Certainly."

"You don't talk back to us!" the leader of the group roars, taking the amicable reply as an insult. In his glowing hands, I-Pin's face scrunches as she tries not to express any pain. Takeshi exchanges glances with Ryohei, ready to coordinate attacks by cutting across the room before he can go through with the threat, while Fon's smile thins and his eyes gain a cold, stone-like texture to them.

On a whim, the woman crouched on the rooftop decides to move.

In an instant, two things happen.

The first thing is the window behind the man being pushed to the side, letting a sudden gust of wind into the room. The Ladro men stiffen, and the former Storm Arcobaleno's intake of breath is sharp as a sword, possibly because the flames stirring in the air would have struck a chord of familiarity inside him.

The second thing is the two hands wrapping themselves around the Ladro's head, mimicking his own hands around the little girl's. He freezes as fabric brushes against the back of his neck, and the woman sitting on the windowsill - black-haired, grey-eyed, dressed in oriental clothing colored blood and tropic sea - offers a placid smile.

Tsuna's Guardians are taken aback. Some of the Ladro subordinates aim their guns at her, but most of them are too slow to react.

"Stand down," she says, the intensity of her voice cutting through the room despite how soft it sounds. "You move, little man, and I will kill you before you can harm a hair upon that girl's head. Isn't that how this goes?"

She can feel the head in her hands try to turn away from her fingers, the eyes of a thousand and one people on her gentle smile, the tension strumming the blood in her veins in a glorious symphony. "Put down the girl," she orders.

He hesitates, and a chortle escapes her. "Go on, now," she whispers, leaning down so her hair brushes against his cheek. And then, just to demonstrate, she lets her flames dance around the tips of her fingers, singing away the tips of his hair.

With deliberate effort, his fingers pry themselves apart one by one. I-Pin drops to the ground on her feet, wide-eyed and wobbly-kneed, before running toward her master - and the other I-Pin, the one with a man ready to be crushed between her palms (as usual) and a smile that rivals the waning moon, cannot - will not - focus on the rest of them just yet. "Wonderful," she proclaims, eyes trained on the prey in her grasp. "Thank you for that."

"Let me go," the mafioso snarls. He sounds terribly unimpressive.

"Hmm." The woman leans forward, a finger playing across her curved lips. Her other hand seizes the back of his neck in a more dramatic gesture. "No, no, that won't do. If I did, I'd no longer have a hostage of my own, and then you'd have all your men try to kill me, yeah?"

Then, sensing the other Ladro's increasing agitation, she shakes her head. "But you don't make a very good hostage after all, I see. Not a lot of loyalty from your men - why is that, I wonder?" Her eyes flicker up, frost crawling into their depths. "Ryohei, behind you."

With a jolt of surprise, the boxer throws himself to the side as the second-in-command lunges at the spot where he was previously, a blast of heat affecting all those in the room as his skin crackles with white fire. At the same time, the other mafioso explode into action. She smiles, taps a pattern with her fingers against the nerves of her captive's neck to knock him out, and tilts her head to the side; three bullets miss her ear by milimeters.

Takeshi slams his sword into the glowing man. His Rain Flames sizzle and spit, steam rising from contact; the mafioso curses long and loud before proceeding to engage the boy, who retaliates with a wall of blue fire. Fon is also spurred into action, ushering I-Pin behind him long enough for her to recover.

And the older I-Pin, who is older and wiser and a deadlier fighter than she was at the age of five, relaxes and throws herself into the conflict.

She brushes her fire against their necks in long, flowing lines, weaving in and out of their ranks with easy footsteps. The Storm Flame whispers a song to her, and she hums the melody alongside it, gathering each breathless sound in her fists. Her fight is a dance, a ballet. It is something the assassin feels and breathes with every length and breadth of her body - and in this waltz, this never-ending circle that started the moment she joined the mafia at the age of three and met Fon at the age of five and came to this world at the age of twenty-five, she is invincible on the battlefield.

_A natural_, the other famiglie have whispered, and she knows they speak true. There is nothing to break the storm of a thousand falling mafioso until the dragon have eaten her fill.

And when it is over, and when she has courted every man and woman across the clearing and the flames clenched in her claws have disappeared, I-Pin looks down and raises her eyebrows at her feet, resting on the backs of all the people she has felled. She never noticed it when the surface beneath her feet became soft, uneven. Her breathing is deep and fast, chest heaving, limbs lighter than air at the height of exhilaration.

A heartbeat later, she realizes the only other noise dominating the room is the shrieking, suffocating silence.

"Impossible," someone says at last. The woman turns to face them and locks eyes with the speaker, determinedly ignoring the rest.

The second-in-command is still there, tired and ragged and held by the tip of Takeshi's sword. "Impossible," he repeats, spittle flying from the corners of his mouth. "The Pelle Fusa is invincible. Not even the Rain Flame should be able to stop it. Not even that. Our famiglia is made up of hundreds. And you-" He lifts an accusing finger in her direction, crazed with fury (fear). "You - you - you demon, how dare you? How dare you?"

She tips her head to the side, having heard it all before. "Yes, how dare I, indeed?"

"You destroyed a _third_ of our famiglia!" he snarls.

She laughs at that. "Only a third? Really? You'll have to do better than that."

Mouth agape and disbelief present in his voice, his bulging eyes bore holes into her. "Who _are_ you?"

I-Pin smiles knives at him. She looks to the window, her back facing the others, and sees...

* * *

...the bandaged horns jutting out of his head, twin scars on his cheeks, one eye hidden by bangs and his hair pulled back in braids of beads and string and feathers. "You're kidding me," Hayato whispers, disbelief written all over his face. "You're really kidding me."

In front of him, Lambo can't bother himself to respond because he's too busy fighting back the feelings, the thoughts, the emotions roaring white noise in his head. "Good work, Hayato," he comments, banishing the last traces of electricity from his fingertips. His voice sounds hollow, even to himself.

"Y-Y-" Hayato points at the older man, bristling in agitation. "You!"

The man looks at the Storm Guardian, a flash of happiness threading through his eyes like quicksilver even as he tries to suppress it. The boy looks the same as he remembers, with a mop on top of his head and a strong stance rooting him to the ground. And he's _short_, which is strange enough to spark a hint of laughter, because Lambo remembers how awkwardly tall he was in his university years before Takeshi and Tsuna caught up to him.

"You're Lambo from twenty years in the future!" Hayato looks almost offended by his presence. He reminds him of a frightened cat, which is fitting. "What...What are you doing here? How did you even get here? Did the stupid cow use his bazooka twice again?" There's the underlying surge of panic in that, too, that maybe his younger self got into trouble. Maybe he got hurt. It reminds him how great the Storm Guardian is (has always been).

After a long pause, Lambo smiles. This would be the second time Hayato has seen a twenty-years-later version of him, wouldn't it? He's forgotten about the Varia battle from so many years before. "Where is he?" he asks his future second-in-command, who looks taken aback for some reason.

"What? Who?"

"My younger self. Where is he?"

Hayato's mouth drops and he splutters, "H-How should I know?" He hesitates, looking unsure of himself. "You switched places with him, didn't you?"

Lambo shakes his head. "No."

"But...what? That's-"

Hayato never gets the chance to say the word _impossible_, though, because the floor suddenly shudders beneath them. An ominous creaking comes from down the hall. With a long, steady breath that isn't quite a sigh, Lambo turns back to the window and plants his foot against the sill. "Go protect the others," he suggests to the boy - not that the suggestion is needed. Hayato has never failed his duties, not in their eyes.

"Wait, what?" Hayato stumbles forward as Lambo's feet crackle with electricity. "Hold on! You haven't explained anything yet! Hey!"

Lambo's mouth twitches upward. "Later, Hayato," he says as he jumps - but before that, his fingers press against the wall next to him, sending a pulse of pale green light...

* * *

...straight through the plaster, sketching neon lines across the surfaces of the house before fading away. "What was that?" Ryohei asks, sounding unnerved.

"A signal," I-Pin answers, stepping down from her throne of bodies. She kneels and presses her palm against a bare patch of floor, and a dark red ring - like a wave of fire - pulses through the room and down the halls. It's an answering call, a sign to confirm their safety, something that's become a routine for them after each battle. She draws herself up again and walks toward the single Ladro left conscious, who shrinks in on himself.

"You stay away," he hisses. Beside him, Takeshi's grip tightens around his sword, and Fon takes a single step closer. The Ladro scrabbles back against the wall. "You stay the _fuck_ away from me."

The woman smiles. "The Vongola don't kill without reason. You aren't good enough of one to bother."

She pivots, one foot planted firmly in the ground as the other lifts up, curving around in a circle to catch the man's head with the angle of her boot. The Rain Guardian pulls back his sword just in time to avoid decapitating the Ladro as he flies across the room to the adjacent wall and slams into it with brute force. I-Pin lowers her leg, the fabric of her tunic fluttering from the movement, a black chain of hair swinging around her back in a perfect circle.

A stilted silence threatens to fall over the group, but I-Pin isn't one for wasting time. "He'll won't wake up 'til after a day or so," she says to the group, nodding to the crumpled figure. "I would tie him up now, just in case. Can't be too careless, yeah?"

The woman looks at her younger self first, her little counterpart with a smaller braid and a wary expression on her face. Forcefully, viciously, she shoves her mind back into the present (don't feel, don't feel, we must rely on each other not to feel) and focuses on the priorities, the important things. "Are you alright?"

A stunned heartbeat passes, and then the little assassin nods.

"And you three?" she asks, turning to her brothers and her father. Her smile comes very close to wavering, almost failing her completely. They look so young, so confused and lost and fearful but _just look at their faces_, she thinks, _look at how _young_ they are._

Takeshi nods, although he does not relinquish the hilt of his sword. Reborn would be proud, she thinks. "I...I think we're fine. Sasagawa-senpai?"

"Y-Yeah." The boxer frowns at the woman. "But who are you? Why did you help us?"

"Who are you?" Fon stresses, and the adult I-Pin grins at her master, still brave and fearless in the face of the dear man she has always loved and hated and chased after for so many wasted years. He looks into her eyes, searching for any quicksilver emotion that might have threaded its way through, but she is careful to keep them clean. "It cannot be," the martial artist says, glancing between her and her younger self like he's disbelieving of the connection between them. He does well to hide his shock, though. "It is...not possible. You cannot be - there is no way you can be-"

She could explain everything to them right now, if she wanted to. She could.

But the assassin tilts her head, catching sight of a green spark in the corner of the open window. "Secure the others," she interrupts, a sense of purpose balancing her mind. Her senses sharpen and her eyes narrow into grey slits, all thought dedicated to her next course of action. Her family can wait, this time. "Purge any remaining Ladro in the house. I'll speak with you later. All of you."

She gathers her Storm flames around her and lifts into the air, hovering inches off the ground. "Wait!" Fon's voice resounds behind her - demanding an answer, a response, at least a glance back in their direction.

I-Pin does not offer any of it. She dives out the window without a word, heading toward...

* * *

...the lawn, which is now a complete mess thanks to the Ladro Famiglia's boss - who is sneering at him with an inflated self-confidence and ego that Tsuna's gotten tired of since the guy first opened his mouth. Actually, he was tired of it since the moment the fight began and the mafia men began ransacking his house like a colony of ants, blowing holes through the walls and encouraging him to tear out his hair. They'll _never_ be able to afford the repairs.

"Die, Vongola Decimo!" the man roars. Tsuna sighs, then, because he's not technically considered to be Vongola Decimo until he goes through the Inheritance Ceremony in full (which hasn't happened yet), they're fighting out in the open where all of the neighbors can hear them, and Reborn _still_ won't give him his Dying Will pills, gloves, or Natsu, under the explanation that he needs to do more training without using Hyper Dying Will Mode. He'll only get used to how ridiculous his life has become when the...the moon starts _breakdancing_, or something.

He dodges the fistful of Lightning Flames and ducks down to punch the man in the stomach. His fist collides, but a sense of exasperation runs through him as he realizes that the force behind the blow wasn't strong enough. The Ladro boss swings at him again, and he pulls away, flitting across the remnants of the front yard.

"You're taking too long, Dame-Tsuna," Reborn calls from the lamppost. Tsuna refrains from rolling his eyes - he'll be shot by his own tutor if he does - and takes a deep breath. He's gotten his nerves somewhat under control and he's only gotten hit a few times, but the man just won't stay down. The best way to conserve his energy isn't to just keep dodging without throwing any attacks, but it's not like he has a lot of openings, either.

So make an opening, Reborn would say, but Tsuna still doesn't see an opportunity. He doesn't know how long he'll be able to keep this up.

The Ladro boss attacks again, this time at an angle, and Tsuna somersaults away just in time. He looks behind him to see the mafioso's knife raised, ready to lower onto his back, and he tries to get up. He tries. And then he rolls to the side, his breath catching in his throat and shock processing through his brain, because he _can't_.

In the corner of his eye, Reborn notices if his frown is anything to go by. Tsuna stares down at his legs - which won't move - as the Ladro boss advances. "You're done for, Decimo," he says, teeth bared in ugly satisfaction.

Tsuna can't think yet, because the knife is descending again, and this time he doesn't have the time to move without getting at least a small gash in either his shoulder or his forearm, and it doesn't look like he has a choice to escape this one uninjured. He twists his neck, pulling his arm away as the knife slams into the ground beside him, nicking the skin beneath his shirt (it stings). The Ladro boss tugs it out and prepares for another jab, and Tsuna runs through the options he has left with disabled legs.

What he doesn't expect, though, is the surprised look on the boss's face as the muscles in his arm strain to plunge the knife down, only to be held in place by a hand wrapped around his. Either Tsuna's vision is leaving him or the second hand has incredible strength, because the knife doesn't even budge no matter how hard the Ladro tries to move it.

"No need to be hasty, now," a woman's voice says, and Tsuna's eyes bulge out of his head at the sight of a shadowed figure standing behind the mafioso.

Then, out of nowhere, two hands grab the brunet beneath his arms and hoist him up. "You've been causing too much trouble around here," a man behind him says to the Ladro.

Tsuna twists around, trying to look at the man's face. "Who-?"

Tsuna finds himself supported against a broad chest - he smells faintly of leather and gunpowder. He looks to his right, where Reborn has touched down; his tutor's face is unreadable as Leon crawls down to his hand, ready to transform into a gun if necessary.

The woman smiles, dark hair covering the intentions in her eyes. And then, to Tsuna's surprise, she lets go of the Ladro's hand. He stumbles away, his fingers twitching, and glares daggers at the newcomers. "Who are you? More Guardians?"

"You could say so," the woman says (what does that even mean?), and springs forward. Red Storm Flames are expelled from her hands as she chops them against his sides, and then against his shoulder. He staggers backward with a grunt of pain, wariness etched across his face.

Tsuna jolts as small waves of electricity run through his dirtied jeans. "What are you doing?" he asks, craning his neck to catch a glimpse of the man behind him - to no avail.

"I'm restoring the feeling in your legs," the man says, his grip steady as a tingle runs down Tsuna's spine - not from the Lightning Flames, but because he swears he's heard that voice before. "He paralyzed you with that knife. My flames can cancel out the effect, but it'll take some time, and you can't fight well in this state. Leave the rest to her."

"Who are you?" Reborn asks, eyes shadowed beneath the brim of his fedora. The man doesn't answer.

Tsuna's attention is drawn to the fighting pair as a loud groan cuts through his surroundings. Just in time, he catches sight of the woman pulling her leg back to balance on the other. She says something in Italian, something like the name of a technique, but he can't quite catch the words. Flames explode around her boots and she lashes out, slamming her heel into the enemy's knee.

What follows is the sound of snapping bone and a howl of harsh agony. The brunet tries hard not to wince.

"That's enough," Reborn cuts in, his voice commanding utter compliance, and the woman's flames dissipate. The Ladro boss's eyes roll up into the back of his head as his body goes limp, and she steps back with a smile.

"We overdid it," the man mutters under his breath.

The woman gives a short laugh. "That's okay. We did good, didn't we?"

"Jyuudaime!" Gokudera's voice calls out. Tsuna turns his head just in time to see his Guardians, Bianchi, I-Pin, Fuuta, and Fon dash out the door to behold the spectacle before them.

He manages a weak smile at them. "Hey, guys."

"Are you hurt, Tsuna?" Yamamoto asks, rushing toward him. Tsuna is confused at the glance he gives the woman, relieved and uneasy at the same time, while Gokudera looks up at the man with a bizarre sense of recognition. "What are you doing to him?" the Storm Guardian snaps, noticing the sparks around Tsuna's legs.

"Fixing him," the man says. His tone sounds flat. He lowers Tsuna onto the ground again, allowing him to take his first look at the man's face - and his jaw threatens to scrape against the floor.

"Lambo?" he asks, taking in the horns and long hair and blank face that undoubtedly belong to the Bovino.

"No." Reborn points his gun at the man (who looks like Lambo but may or may not be him), eyes darkening to an impossible degree. "The bazooka switches the present Lambo with his sixteen-year-old self. If he uses it again, he gets replaced with his twenty-six-year old self, but the time limit gets carried over," he explains to the gathering of people. "One person from two different timelines - no, two people with the same identity cannot exist in the same world, at the same time."

Yamamoto glances between the six-year-old Bovino at Fuuta's side, staring uncertainly at the scene, and the twenty-six-year old looking at Reborn with a strange smirk on his face. "Then..."

"You're right to be wary," the woman says, as all eyes turn to her. She smiles at them. "You're right to be wary of a great many things. But he does look like Lambo, doesn't he? Just exclude the ridiculous head of broccoli I was fearful of as a child and he's the spitting image."

Lambo-not-Lambo heaves a sigh. "My younger self can hear you, I-Pin."

"I-Pin?" Tsuna echoes. The younger I-Pin, the one of the present, starts a little as the woman's gaze lands on her. Fon's eyes widen - a rare sight to see on the martial artist's face.

"Are you serious?" Bianchi murmurs, while the infant Lambo ogles his counterpart with apparent wonder.

The adult I-Pin lopes forward, the adult Lambo steps back, and the two of them stop next to each other, shoulders brushing. They look really perfect together, which sounds strange in Tsuna's head, but there's a strength around them that makes him feel awe just looking at them. It could be because this I-Pin took out the Ladro boss in a fraction of the time he's spent trying to fight him, or this Lambo could handle Levi's attacks in the Lightning Ring battle without breaking a sweat. It could be because Tsuna thinks their eyes are a little bit different than before, lightning-bright green and rose-rich red, and meeting their gazes sends shivers down the backs of his arms.

"Come to Kokuyo Land, where your Mist Guardians are," I-Pin commands, shoulders down and neck long and smile held high, and they all stiffen in surprise. Even the future Lambo tilts his mouth downward, eyes slit questioningly in her direction. Then, realization seems to dawn upon him - if the quicksilver smile is anything to go by - and he looks forward again. "Everything will be explained there," she continues. "It's easier this way."

"Make your calls first." Lambo picks up where she left off, although his words are mostly directed toward Reborn. "We left most of the Ladro alive. You'll need some guys to clean up the place."

And then the he cuts a grenade hanging off his belt with a knife that comes out of nowhere, and before the pillars of smoke envelop them, Tsuna catches sight of storm flames spiraling around their feet and I-Pin's hand around his arm.

"Wait!" Gokudera shouts.

As the grenade hits the ground, a stream of air forces them back. Lambo - the six-year-old one - lets out a cry as he tumbles away, and Reborn and Fon brace themselves by digging their heels into the dirt. Tsuna closes his eyes and covers his nose, and as the wind settles, he opens them to see nothing but...

* * *

_t.b.c_

Ladro - "thief" (Italian)

Pelle Febbricitante - "fevered skin" (Italian)

Colpo Elettrico - "electric shot" (Italian)

famiglie - "families" (Italian, plural of 'famiglia' (family))

**Endnotes:** i'll put all of the foreign words and their translations at the bottom from now on (unless it's really obvious like 'ni hao' or 'vongola' or something), but sometimes i'll just be punching these into google translate, so sorry if some of them aren't very accurate, hehe!

this fic will not be updated again until i finish up my buffer of chapters, which shouldn't take more than a week or so, depending on my workload. to any reviewers: your input will be very appreciated later on when i start taking story ideas and turning them into mini arcs, so please hang in there until we reach the end of the 'prologue' section of this fic (the first three or four chapters).

also, this story is mainly centered around i-pin and lambo. i'll definitely try to give them equal amounts of attention, but it'll vary depending on the story arcs and the (lack of) plot. let's see how it goes.

thank you very much again for reading (: feedback is loved and appreciated.


	2. conflagration of song

**Author's Commentary:** it hasn't exactly been a week, but chapter 4 is almost finished, so why not put this one up?

anyway, please enjoy. (: favorites, follows, and reviews are appreciated.

* * *

...blank walls dotted with little holes, scrapes across the wooden boards, specks of dust floating in what little rays of light are shining through the ceiling. Once upon a time, in another world that seems so very long ago (but actually isn't), Mukuro and her boss fought here in a flurry of flames, darkness, and the screaming desire to kill.

Chrome never saw the fight, but she sees the traces of flames burned against the floor and the scuff marks and dents patterned against the walls. Some of it was caused by the clash, and some of it wasn't, but she likes to sit here and imagine in her mind's eye what happened in the battle. Maybe her boss put his right foot _there_, where that black burn is, and his hand _there_, so he could block Mukuro's attack. And then maybe Mukuro swung his trident down but missed, so that the points dug into the floor over _there_, and Tsuna's flame-filled hand brushed against the spot in the middle of the room, leaving that gaping hole with splintering edges.

She sighs and leans her head back against the wall, a half-eaten peach cradled in her hands. The sun is beginning to fall and it'll be dinner soon; Chikusa and Ken actually brought some fruit home from their trip to the grocery store instead of just gum, sweets, and bars, much to her delight. Her ears pick up the two boys, along with Fran and M.M, having a heated discussion in one of the nearby rooms.

Mukuro's voice, quiet and filled with a sort of superior amusement, brushes against her senses. She smiles and takes another bite from her peach, stretching her legs out in front of her. If Mukuro is talking, the conversation must be interesting, but she doesn't feel like moving to join them at the moment. The abandoned theater is nice; empty and lonely sometimes, but still one of the most peaceful places in her world (the only places better are at Mukuro's side or behind Boss's back).

"Hello, _jiejie._"

She gasps, her one eye widening at the blur of skin-tone and fabric in front of her. The stranger - no, the intruder, the enemy - taps her feet down on the ground, but Chrome is already on her feet, ready to defend herself. Her hands spin the shape of a single-spiked trident even as her mind asks the most obvious question - _how?_ How did she get in here? How did the Mist Guardian not _notice_ her?

The intruder holds her hands up in the universal sign of surrender. Chrome ignores it - people lie all the time. "Who are you?" she asks, ignoring the nervous lilt to her own voice.

"I won't hurt you." The woman is smiling.

Chrome ignores that, too. "Answer me," she says, knuckles whitening with her death grip on the trident. "Who are you?"

In the distance, a crashing noise resounds. The girl doesn't look away from her target - she's better than that, and she only has one eye to cover her, anyway - but a spark of anxiety alights when she realizes the others have stopped talking. So it can't be Ken throwing a fit, or Mukuro trying to hurt Fran. Most likely another threat. She focuses on the intruder again and realizes that the woman stands between her and the exit to the room, positioned in a way that blocks her escape. It doesn't matter much in the long run, since she's capable of blasting her way through the walls if she needs to, but the intention is still there.

Her thought process is thrown off the tracks as the intruder narrows her eyes, dulls her smile, and steps to the side, leaving the path to the theater entrance wide open. Chrome keeps the tip of her trident aimed at the woman, but now she's confused, too, because - what could she possibly want?

It could be a trick, just a trick. A ploy to lower her guard and render her defenseless.

"I am I-Pin from twenty years into the future," the woman says, causing Chrome's mouth to drop. And again - "I won't hurt you."

Before the girl can speak up and call her out on the lie (the Lightning Guardian can bring his future self back in time, certainly, but twenty years from now is impossible, and it takes more than five minutes to go from Boss's house to Kokuyo Land), the intruder speaks up again. "That wasn't a good way to greet you. Sorry about that. It was more of a spur-of-the-moment type of thing, you see." She's still smiling, and her features look a bit strange - they seem to resemble someone, but Chrome can't spare the thought to recall exactly who. "There's no need for the weapon, Chrome."

"How-" Chrome's trident dips out of hesitation. "How do you know my name?"

The woman laughs, lowering her hands. "Because I'm I-Pin. You don't believe I am who I say?"

The girl doesn't bother thinking of a reply. There's no need to, because an explosion wracks through the building, and she can hear Chikusa and M.M. screaming something. They're angry, not frustrated, and the hostility is apparent in their yells. Another rumble follows, and her entire body stiffens in response.

"Ah, that would be Lambo causing a fuss." A wide grin, and the intruder spins on her heel, striding toward the door. Halfway out of the room, she stops and turns her head. "The future Lambo, that is. Not the one you're familiar with. Would you like to help me calm them down?"

Chrome takes the question as a rhetorical one and doesn't move a muscle until the woman's silhouette has disappeared down the dark end of the hall. She takes a deep breath and wipes the sweat off her palms before following the intruder, trident held firmly out in front of her. She doesn't trust that woman, nor her claims about being from the future, but she can't just stand there while the others are in trouble - while the others are fighting. Besides, Chrome knows the woman is fast enough to hurt her (her invisible entrance can testify for that), to potentially strike her down, but she just stood there and talked and didn't try to attack.

Her thoughts are interrupted by the increasing volume of voices as she draws nearer to the group. "-hell are you supposed to be?" Ken is shouting. "What do you guys want?"

Seconds later, the female Mist Guardian bursts into a chaotic mess of a room. Board game pieces are littered across the floor, the table is upturned, and everyone is up on their feet. Fran is in the corner, an impassive expression painted across his face. M.M. crowds next to Mukuro, who holds his trident at an unfamiliar person's neck and carries his trademark smirk. Chikusa is behind Ken, who clenches his hands like he's ready to unsheathe his claws, and all of them are on guard.

"That's enough, Ken," Mukuro says, eyes flickering over to her.

Chrome tightens her grip on her trident upon seeing the other intruder, a man with bangs covering one of his eyes and a black leather jacket wrapped around his shoulders. Several necklaces dangle from his neck, and a couple of beads and feathers are tied to the ends of his hair. Beside him stands the woman, still smiling in the face of the surrounding opposition.

The man turns to her and smiles as well, though it's nothing more than a shade compared to the one on the woman's face. "Hello, Chrome."

M.M. whips around toward her, mouth open and ready to demand an answer as to why the man knows Chrome's name (who really wouldn't know how to reply), but she's cut off when the unknown woman speaks. "Maybe this was a bad idea," she muses out loud in a light, teasing tone. "Things were going fine until we came here."

The man drops into a slouch, eyeing his companion with overwhelming exasperation. "No, things _weren't_ fine. And we probably should've knocked first. This was hasty."

She barks a laugh. "The door is a boring entryway, isn't it? And we've made such a wonderful first impression, too. Look at how eager they are to greet us."

"We're going to get impaled," he says dryly. "We're going to get ourselves killed in the next twenty seconds before Tsuna and the others get here, and that'll just be pathetic. We haven't even explained anything yet. This is simply the best course of action we've ever taken."

He nods toward Mukuro, who is watching their interaction with keen eyes. "Of course, it'd be great if you'd be willing to hold off on the decapitating for a while."

Her counterpart releases his trademark laugh, the tips of his trident pricking the base of the relaxed man's throat. Either this stranger is skilled enough to hide his fear, or he doesn't believe Mukuro has the strength to kill him - which is ridiculous, Chrome believes, because Mukuro is _strong_. "The Vongola are coming here, you say?" the Mist Guardian asks, having to look upward to meet the man's gaze. "Interesting. You do seem to be connected to them, if the Lightning Guardian's ring on your finger is anything to go by."

Chrome stills in surprise at the declaration, eyes zeroing in on the ring on the man's hand.

"Ah. That." The man lifts it up and stares like he's only just noticed it there. "I can explain everything in a bit. Tsuna and the others are still trying to find us."

Mukuro lifts his chin and his trident at the same time, forcing the man's head upward. "Why is that?"

The stranger merely shrugs, ignorant of the beads of blood welling up around his throat. Or maybe he does know it, and just doesn't care. "We broke into their house."

"We left a lot of bodies on their floor," the woman adds, making no move to pull her comrade away from the weapon. "They wanted to know who we were, so we told them to meet us here, since we figured this was a nice place to talk." Her eyes narrow into silver slits. "And also, we think you should be present while we have our conversation, since you and your gang will want to hear it."

"Oh?" Calculations fly past Mukuro's eyes, his smirk set in stone as he studies the two adults in front of him with an intense set of mind and a fair amount of caution. Chrome herself is drawing up the worst possible conclusion, which is that they stole the ring and came here for their next targets, but it doesn't fit the fact that they seem to be purposefully waiting for Boss and the others. Unless, of course, everything they've said so far is a lie.

Indistinct voices, muted yet familiar, catch her attention. Everyone pauses to listen to the pounding of footsteps that are steadily growing closer. "That would be them," the man says, his eyes still trained on Mukuro's face. "We're sorry, Mukuro."

Mukuro pulls his trident back a centimeter, puzzlement flashing across his features at the non sequitur. The others look equally confused. "For what?"

The woman smiles humorlessly. "For all that it's worth."

The door to the old lobby bursts open. "Boss!" Chrome exclaims as four boys stumble into the room, one with a mass of brown hair atop his head. Then the others pile in with them - Reborn and I-Pin and her master, Fon, and then Bianchi and Fuuta and Lambo.

"You guys!" Boss rights himself, eyes darting rapidly between them and the intruders. Chrome watches him take in the trident at the man's throat, the gang spread out in a circle around the room, and herself hovering in the back against the exit. She takes a few steps forward, a sense of relief flooding through her at the sight of him. Ken looks ready to start a confrontation or a shouting match, but Chikusa holds him back, glancing at Mukuro in the process.

"Is everyone alright?" Boss asks, then.

Chrome gives a careful nod. "We're fine," she says. The brunet lets out a silent sigh that releases half of the tension in his body, and for the hundredth time, Chrome can't help but think she will never be able to understand him.

"You two!" Gokudera growls, standing beside Boss and glaring at the strangers in the room. She turns back and feels her wariness return, noting the too-perfect smile turning the woman's mouth and the vacant expression of the man, and the same look in both of their eyes that sets her on edge. Reborn and Fon, both grown men in infantile bodies, hop onto a leg of the upturned table, the faintest of frowns marring their faces.

The woman turns her eyes downward, murmuring something to her comrade. Chrome can't quite hear it, but the syllables don't sound like anything Japanese. The man gives a subtle nod in reply.

"Let's start by lowering those weapons of yours," he says, louder so everyone can hear. "We're here to talk. We didn't fight the Ladro to kill you later, and this stand-off isn't getting us anywhere."

She doesn't understand the part about the Ladro, but Gokudera grits his teeth and lets his hands fall away from the dynamite at his belt. Five seconds later, Mukuro removes the tips of his trident from the man's throat and steps away, but never lowers it.

"Why did you help us?" Reborn asks. Chrome recognizes that tone of voice, the sound a mafia man makes when he needs to perform an interrogation or judge whether someone needs to be killed or not. She's heard him use it before on Byakuran and Xanxus and all of Boss's enemies, and even on mafia people who are innocent.

The woman's smile is deadlier than a knife, more dangerous than the glint of a bullet or a thrashing of steel. "We needed to introduce ourselves one way or another. Also, we're famiglia."

"You mentioned before you were I-Pin and Lambo from twenty years into the future." Reborn's eyes glint like starlight. "How?"

She casts a quick look around her gang; everyone has disbelieving (or deadpan) looks on their faces save for Mukuro, who doesn't look fazed by the ordeal. Her counterpart is silent, which is really unexpected, because she would think he'd comment more about the strangers standing in their territory claiming to be impossible people. Instead, Mukuro's face is blank except for his narrowed eyes. Chrome figures he can see something in these intruders that she can't.

"The bazooka twenty years into our past, in your present time, takes you ten years into the future," the man says. "A lot has changed in our time, including technology. We took it to Shoichi, Spanner, commissioned Giannini and his dad, even brought it to the Bovino. They...upgraded it, you could say."

The woman elaborates, "The White Round Time Machine from the Byakuran's parallel world - it has similar parts, similar functions, but they had it compacted to fit the bazooka's features and reversed the time flow so we could travel backward. It took a lot more tweaking until we could set the time that passes in our world and the time we have to spend here." She taps her wrist. "Currently, the time passing in our world compared to this world is twenty five hours per three seconds, and the time we have to spend in this world is set to 137 days."

Boss's eyes widen. "137 days? No, four-and-a-half-months?" he repeats. "But the normal Ten-Year-Bazooka can only last for five minutes!"

"Yes, but things change. Also, the time limit is only a precaution." The man reaches up and tugs out one of the necklaces hiding under his shirt. Attached to it is a small black circle, barely larger than the size of his thumb, with a white X painted across the front. "This device will take us back whenever we want within the duration of our stay."

"So you're me from the future?" six-year-old Lambo asks. "And you're Tail Head when she's all grown up?"

Both of their heads snap up at the sound of the little boy's voice. The man's mouth twitches into a sort of grimace, but the effulgent fondness in his eyes is so obviously there. To his side, the woman tilts her head as if listening to an inaudible tune, soft eyes and soft smile directed at the man and not the child.

"Yeah," the man says. "Yeah, we are."

Chrome stares hard at the oldest adults in the room, for once neglecting her observation of the others' expressions. She isn't close with Lambo - he's too loud for her comfort, and she doesn't understand the pandemonium that always seems to follow his wake. I-Pin, however, is her friend (a dear, precious person) with a silvery voice and a kind face, who shares food with her and hops along their walks with infectious excitement. Despite being five and an assassin and walking bomb, I-Pin is one of the very first people who showed kindness to her. Chrome treasures that.

She looks between the I-Pin of this time and the I-Pin of the future, and she tries to see the similarities between them. She tries. But the woman in front of her, from what Chrome can see, is almost entirely what I-Pin is not. She moves like water, with sinewy arms and legs of limber, wearing the default expression of a smile and an aura of power as an undertone of her skin. Chrome isn't quite sure what she expected I-Pin's twenty-five-year-old self to be like, but she did expect her to be more joyful, more cheerful - like I-Pin's fifteen-year-old self, whom she only glimpsed once for a short while but could at least recognize the merriness on her face.

Lambo is the same, because Chrome cannot connect the brash, bold infant to the man with a presence of authority and a mouth that speaks so quiet. This man who did not flinch under the weight of Mukuro's threat cannot be the same boy who wears spotted suits and throws brazen fits and bursts into tears at every wrongdoing.

If people were puzzles, she must be missing a piece, because these ones do not fit.

The woman's voice brings her back to reality. "If you need proof, just look at Lambo's ring," she says. "Besides, even if we were illusionists or impersonators, we wouldn't be able to slip by the greatest hitman and the strongest Mist Guardians in the world. Excluding Viper, who isn't here."

The man shoots her a look. "Kawahira, too."

She makes a vague gesture with her hand in response, either acknowledging or brushing away the mention - Chrome can't tell which.

Tsuna's auburn gaze flickers down to the man's ring, and then back to his face. "That's...the Lightning Guardian ring."

He twitches a smile. "It's not fake."

Chrome counts two heartbeats of silence until Tsuna's tutor tilts his fedora downward, Leon relaxing on the brim (perhaps he sensed the danger has passed). "I'll believe you," he says at last. "But why would you need to upgrade the bazooka? Why did you go back twenty years into the past?" Two obsidian stones for eyes scrutinize them in the dim light of the room. "What do you want?"

She finds it strange how, after a few seconds of meeting Reborn's gaze, they turn to Tsuna for their next words.

The future I-Pin starts first. "For the past seven years, a certain famiglia has been proving itself to be quite a thorn in our side. They've ignored all attempts at making peace and, as usual, their intentions revolve around trying to kill or capture the Vongola boss and Guardians. They have multiple bases spread out over Europe and in other continents as well. We've lost many men trying to deal with them and they're causing too much trouble to be tolerated any longer."

"After a while, once they started posing more of a threat, we did our research," the man - no, the future Lambo - continues. "Apparently, our enemy's been planning their attacks against our famiglia and allies for _years_. They've been meticulous about everything they've done, including the precise time they conduct their assassination attempts and their all-out raids on our bases. Even before they first revealed themselves to us as a hostile force, they've been setting things up in hiding, all while framing other famiglie to do their own investigations so we wouldn't suspect them."

"Judging from the intel we've been gathering over the past few years, in our time..." the woman pauses for effect. "They first started developing their grand plot even _before_ Tsuna began his training to inherit the position of Vongola boss. For the past twenty-three years or so, they've been mass-producing weapons, creating a specialized...attack form that we'd have to deal with thirteen years later. In our world, we've been looking for any sort of information that can counter their inventions, but so far, it's all amounted to nothing."

"And that's why we've used the bazooka." The man nods at his partner, his face darkened. "This world contains precious information about their weapon developments and plans that have yet to be destroyed. They've erased most of it in our time, and since it seems like we have no way to defeat them without this information, we used the bazooka to travel back in time. It was...necessary."

"Wait, wait, wait," Tsuna says as the man takes a breath. A sort of stricken horror enters his eyes. "You - You keep saying 'enemy' like we're supposed to know who it is. What famiglia are you taking about?"

They stare at him for a long moment.

The future Lambo's eyes slide shut, and the future I-Pin tilts her head up at the old, broken ceiling. "There's no getting around this," she murmurs, barely above a whisper.

"_Oni dolzhny znat'_," her companion says in the same volume. Chrome blinks her one eye at the foreign words, smoothly spoken and accented in strange places; it sounds like Russian. She resists the urge to step forward so she can hear them better - there's no point if she can't understand them, anyway. "_My ne mozhem uderzhat' ikh ot znaya ob ikh detstve koshmar. Mukuro budet v yarosti. Ken i Chikusa tozhe._"

The future I-Pin scoffs and replies in the same language, using a mix of strange syllables and tongue twists Chrome can hardly hope to understand. She gestures vaguely at their surroundings, and then motions toward a puzzled Boss.

"H-Hey! Talk so we can understand you!" Ken exclaims in the back, confused by this turn of events. Chrome tenses as Reborn's expression turns stunned and Fon's head jerks up; as the two most seasoned mafia men in the room who know multitudes of languages, they can probably understand everything the time travelers have said. She isn't the only one who notices their reactions, because Boss looks over at his tutor with urgent curiosity and the younger I-Pin glances at her master with a fair amount of concern.

Chrome is almost certain she heard Mukuro's name mentioned, as well as Ken and Chikusa. Her heart clenches with trepidation.

Mukuro's smirk never leaves his face, although Chrome catches the way he shifts his trident forward. "Enough dancing around the subject. Who is this enemy you speak of?"

The future Lambo turns to him, and his face sinks deeper into its own shadows, and his mouth turns downward with something that borders dangerously close to regret. Something in Chrome's heart seizes fearfully at the sight of it.

He opens his mouth, and-

"The Estraneo Famiglia," he says.

Dead silence falls.

What?

"Is that meant to be a joke?" Mukuro asks, his smirk spreading. Dark mirth simmers beneath his voice. "The Estraneo are-"

"Alive," I-Pin says.

No. What?

Impossible.

But that's alright. They're lying, is all. They're just liars.

"You never killed them all," Lambo says, even as Mukuro's smirk fades and Ken stays still as a statue and Chikusa frowns like he can't understand, he just can't understand. "The researchers in the lab were massacred, nobody in the building was left alive save for you three, but you never killed them all."

Ridiculous.

"What are you saying, pyon?" Ken asks. She can hear the slow build of hysteria in his voice and the pounding rhythm of her own heart. "The Estraneo were wiped out by Mukuro-san! They're all dead!"

I-Pin meets his gaze squarely. "The men who worked in the Estraneo's main lab are dead, certainly. But there were more."

Chikusa shakes his head, looking terribly lost. "No, no, we killed the ones patrolling outside, too. We destroyed them."

"The Estraneo was advanced enough to create the Possession Bullet, powerful enough to avoid complete extermination by the other famiglies, and heartless enough to experiment on their own children," Lambo says. "They don't die easy, not even when the rest of the underground targets them. You killed the people in the lab, but not the admins who were quick enough to escape. They fled without you ever knowing and went to the other bases they had - still have - scattered around Europe. Some of them must have fled the continent altogether. You just killed their boss and guardians and thought that was the end of it, but it wasn't." His green eye narrows. "At the age of nine or ten, it's easy for things to be overlooked. You never thought about the others, the top researchers, the people who could have, perhaps, managed to escape-"

"Silence," Mukuro hisses, startling everyone with the sheer fury in his tone.

White noise screams in Chrome's head.

"-because, back then, you must have thought that lab was the entirety of the Estraneo," I-Pin continues ruthlessly. "How long did they experiment on you? Two, three, five years? You would've been kept in the dark all the while, not knowing about the other bases, the other experiments that were being conducted in secret. Your world would've been closed off. The Estraneo were weakened by the attacks from other famiglie and even more so from your little rebellion, but they never died out. They're still around somewhere, in hiding-"

"_Shut up!_" Ken roars, carnage reflected in his eyes. "Just shut up! You're lying! You're _fucking liars!_"

And Chrome feels her fingers tremble as she brings them up to his mouth, feels the birds in her body explode into a glorious conflagration of song, because how can fear like this exist? How can this fear be real? It's devouring them alive-

"-and even after five years, after you grew up and gained experience and began to know better, you never considered the possibility of their survival - mainly because you still remembered that liberation and relief you felt as a child once the lab was destroyed, and the memory of that feeling continued to assure you that the possibility couldn't exist and prevented you from thinking deeper. And another part of it was, of course, the fright of even entertaining the thought-"

Chikusa sinks to the ground, one hand over his mouth and the other clutching his stomach.

And Mukuro's trident shoots forward in an impossible blur, accompanied by a pair of crazed, heterochromic eyes and a snarl and bared teeth. Chrome watches it in slow motion, sees it head straight toward I-Pin's heart.

In an instant, the woman lifts both her hands - each one grasps a tine of the weapon, stopping it inches away from her flesh. A blast of air echoes the force behind the execution attempt. "Lambo," she snaps, grey eyes replaced by crimson slivers glittering in the dim.

The man sweeps his arm in a horizontal line, green sparks flying off the tips of his fingers. "_Thunder Parete_," he barks.

A wall of green light shimmers into existence, surrounding the battlers in a dome of pure energy. "Mukuro!" Boss shouts, running forward.

Mukuro is angry. So very angry, so livid with rage that Chrome can sense it thrumming through his body - and she doesn't even know how she can feel that when they're no longer connected. He leaps away, back pressed against the future Lambo's barrier. The symbol carved into his red eye begins to spin. Chrome watches his jerky movements, the frenzy of panic and hate that's taken control, and she sees the little parts of his being explode into a burning inferno of terror.

"Don't, Boss," Chrome hears herself say. Boss freezes in his tracks and turns to her, a question already formed on his lips. She shakes her head and backs away, coldness seeping into her stomach.

"Get out," the future I-Pin says to them, far too calm in her current situation. Her braid whips around her in an invisible breeze, tempered Storm Flames at work. "Take the others and go." She pulls the trident away from her body and leans back, dodging Mukuro's fist aimed at her jaw.

The future Lambo gives a curt nod. "Chrome, Yamamoto, get Chikusa and Ken," he calls over his shoulder. "The rest of you, leave the building and evacuate Kokuyo. Nobody stays behind."

Chrome hurries toward the boy huddled against the floor - half of her is surprised she remembers how to move. "Let's go, Chikusa," she says, again (it doesn't sound like her), and grabs hold of his hand. It's too cold and feels like death despite the lively way it trembles.

Yamamoto locks arms beneath Ken's and drags him upright, blue flames shimmering around his fingers to calm him down. "What's wrong with him?" he asks, staring at Chrome several feet in front of him.

She just shakes her head and slings one of Chikusa's arms over her shoulders. The sounds of swinging steel and pounding feet echo in the distance. The white noise is still there, dominating the spaces in her mind. And she is shaking from head to toe, thinking about how this could happen, _how could they still be alive?_

"What about Mukuro?" Boss is shouting at the future Lambo, actually shouting, a protective light shining in his eyes. "We're just going to leave him here?" Behind him, Bianchi and Fuuta are ushering the younger Lambo and I-Pin out of the room, while M.M. and Flan linger next to the doorway.

"Why is I-Pin fighting back? She needs to calm him down!" Gokudera yells next, eyes locked onto the battle going on inside the barrier. Chrome doesn't need to (want to) look.

The future Lambo makes a quick gesture with his hand. The barrier shimmers, looking more opaque than before. "I-Pin can handle Mukuro for now. I need to layer the barrier for their fight and none of you are safe here yet." He narrows his eyes at them. "Tsuna, Hayato, Ryohei - move."

The next clash of trident against skin, Mist against Storm, makes the floor rumble with ominous warning. "Lambo is right," Reborn calls. "Get going."

Boss stares at them like they've gone insane. "But Mukuro is-"

He cuts himself off as Chrome grabs onto his arm and pulls, dragging him away from the dome with Chikusa in tow. "Chrome?" he asks, shock apparent in his voice. She doesn't look at him, doesn't want to know what her own face looks like, but the cold snake coiled in her stomach and creeping past her lungs is almost unbearable. Boss doesn't understand; he wants to help, but he doesn't know any more than the rest of them.

They stumble out of the room in threes and fours. "Keep moving," Fon says, urging them on next to Reborn - distantly, Chrome thinks about how strange his voice sounds when it's strained.

After a long walk that's half-running and half-stumbling, Chrome finally collapses outside of the entrance to Kokuyo Land, along with everyone else. The future Lambo is still in there, along with the older I-Pin and Mukuro. The dome has expanded to multiple times its previous size, and the occasional Mist Flames brush against the sides of the walls with growing intensity and frequency.

Chikusa slumps forward at her side. She releases him and stands up. If anyone else is talking, she can't hear them. The white noise roars and roars and turns black inside her head, with hints of red and purple and indigo.

"Chrome?" Tsuna asks, but his voice sounds - muffled, somehow. She ignores it.

The Estraneo are alive. The people who hurt her family are _alive._

The coldness in her chest explodes into a blizzard, enveloping her Mist-made organs and threatening to dissipate them. At the same time, Mukuro's faint scream pierces the air, and Chrome recognizes this burning, freezing taste in her tongue as the feeling of wrath.

With a strangled sound she didn't even know existed inside of her...

* * *

...he bites his nails into the flesh of his palms, drawing blood from five little crescents.

Mukuro staggers to his feet again, ragged breaths escaping him. The fingers clenched around his khakkhara are bruised, the earring off his left ear spotted with blood. The mark of the First Path is barely visible in his scarlet eye, which she punched swollen the moment he unleashed his five realms. Bangs matted with sweat and clumped against his forehead hide the expression (the rage, the hate, the self-pity) in his eyes. His right leg crumbles under his weight (she tried to avoid his kneecaps); quickly, he extends his weapon as leverage to support him.

I-Pin watches in silence.

Before, Mukuro was screaming. Screaming and shouting himself hoarse with all the things she knew he would say - _liar, you're lying, why, how dare you_, but it doesn't matter because she was expecting all of it anyway. Words are tame. But she can see through his eyes and the shape of his mouth all the thoughts written along his insides, all of the pain and the _how could you_ and _how could I, why is this happening, what have we done_. Those things, she thinks, hit the hardest.

Lambo's footsteps approach from the distance. I-Pin lets him draw near. The fight is over now, and she confirms it when the Mist Guardian looks up at her, pale-faced and emptied of his own flames.

"I'm not the one you want to kill," she says.

The boy (and he really is just a boy, isn't he?) stares at her, and his blue eye is the worst. She can see the demons and nightmares and haunted things lurking in there. Their Mukuro, their brother twenty years older, has tasted kindness and known love and remembers peace because of their dearest Tsuna, and he reacted marginally better at the news. But this one is still a child. This one doesn't know so much.

Lambo comes to her side, looking her up and down. I-Pin tilts her head, knowing there's blood dripping down her arms and red stripes patterned across her body, but the blood-lust lingering in her mind keeps the stinging feeling away. A part of her is impressed by the child, because even if she didn't take some of the attacks willingly, she still wouldn't have escaped him unscathed by his black birds and black feathers and endless mist filling the dome of their arena.

Mukuro gives in to the wounds and falls to his knees. She takes a breath and releases the remnants of her killing intent, letting it be whisked away along with her Storm Flames.

"Why?" The boy rasps, all the hate in his little body being condensed into that one, meaningless word.

Why?

He wants to know _why?_

She's tempted to laugh. They've been asking the same question for the past _decade._

Lambo kneels down to meet Mukuro's wide, wide eyes. "We are going to kill the Estraneo," he tells him, then. "Once they've set up their main base and we've and stolen the information we need, we're going to destroy the place and tell you about the five other bases they have in the other countries."

"In four months, we will make our move," she says. A thrum of red fire runs through her veins. "And then you won't have to think of them anymore."

He just stares at them, like he can't believe what he is hearing. She counts five, six, seven seconds of the blatant shock on his face. And then the child lowers his head and giggles, full of insanity and hysteria, one hand reaching up to clutch his red, red eye that must be beginning to ache.

"They will suffer," he hisses, his tone promising several lifetimes of torture for his victims. I-Pin sees the boiling wrath ignite again, and this time, it isn't directed toward her. "I want them suffer. But you-" He smiles at them with something akin to fascination, and she almost thinks he's gone mad, somewhat. "You wish for revenge, as well?"

Revenge is foolish. Revenge is the roses on a coffin, the color of a dying will poorly used, the redness seeping through their hands after dark. It gives them the coldest heart and the most voracious appetite, and not once has it ever ended in their favor.

Lambo thinks the same and dismisses the notion. "Vengeance means nothing. We owe this world a debt." His eyes bore into Mukuro's. "And you can't defeat them on your own, not even in this time."

"We'll help you," she adds. "Ever since you realized they were still alive, we know you've always wanted..."

He looks at her, suddenly quiet and very, very wary. "Wanted what?"

She just smiles at him instead of replying (he already knows the answer, anyway) and lets her stony countenance that appeared in the midst of their battle fade away without a trace. "The world of humans hasn't ended yet," she says, as Lambo rises to his feet and extends a hand toward the boy.

(Chrome once told her that the five stages of death are denial, anger, bargain, depression, and acceptance. I-Pin still thinks it's ridiculous. Where is the resolution? Where is the strength to drag themselves out of the grave, manifested in the Flames of the willful and the dying? She will change it. She will make it so there are only four stages, and the fifth one is not a stage of death, but a revival. Wouldn't that be glorious?)

After a long, long pause, Mukuro reaches out and, with a glint of wonderful resolve in his eyes...

* * *

...grabs his hand in a tight, desperate squeeze. "Mukuro-sama!" Chrome exclaims, falling to his side. She whips around to pierce I-Pin with a one-eyed, violet stare. "Is he...?"

"Oh, he'll be fine," the woman says, busying herself with bandaging up her arms. Tsuna gets the feeling Chrome would be much more hostile if I-Pin isn't dripping blood over the dusty, glass-covered floor of what used to be the theater room. Mukuro looks exhausted, even in his unconscious state, but I-Pin doesn't even wince as she examines the gash running along her rib cage.

"He's suffering from minor flame overexertion, bruises, some cracked ribs, and bone fractures along the fingers of his left hand," she continues. "Obviously, he's fatigued enough to have fainted as soon as we helped him up, and he'll be emotionally compromised when he wakes up either tonight or tomorrow morning. It's nothing too serious overall so long as you ring up Shamal and have him speed up the healing process." Her light smile doesn't really fit the circumstances. "We're only the bearers of bad news, Chrome. What was the phrase, again? 'Shooting the messengers'?"

Confused, Tsuna follows I-Pin's gaze back to his Mist Guardian and stiffens at the cold, nightly look on her face, very close to a glare. If he didn't know better, he would think he sees a flicker of murderous intent in her eye. Then, Chrome turns her attention back to Mukuro's injuries and presses their folded hands against her forehead, bangs shadowing her face.

At first, he doesn't understand. And then realization strikes like a bolt of lightning and _oh_ - maybe Chrome blames them, somewhat, for letting this happen. That would make sense, because Chikusa is trying to remember how to breathe and Ken had to be knocked unconscious to avoid hurting himself and Mukuro nearly burned everyone up in his own rage, and all of their pain only started when I-Pin and Lambo from the future came and told them about...about everything.

But it isn't their fault. He knows that, they know that, he knows Chrome knows that by the way her angry eyes stare unseeingly into the distance. It's all the Estraneo's fault (not that blame even matters in the long run), and that's just the worst thing, isn't it?

"I'll call Shamal," Gokudera says in the background, flipping out his phone. The brunet gets the feeling his Storm Guardian is scrabbling for something to do, anything that could help.

Tsuna drags his gaze away from Mukuro's body (beaten and battered, none of it is right) and takes a deep breath, inhale and exhale. "Can you ask him to just...prepare and clear some space for them? He'll need to treat them at his office back at school anyway, so we'll carry them over."

Gokudera gives a curt nod and lingers behind as they begin walking back to the entrance of Kokuyo, number dialed and phone already held against his ear. "Got it, Tenth."

Yamamoto shoots him a worried look. "But Hibari-"

"-won't mind," the brunet finishes. "And if he does, I'll just agree to a spar and deal with it later." His Guardian and his friends are suffering right in front of him; he'll gladly pass through his Cloud Guardian's territory and take a tonfa to the face if it means assuring their well-being.

Yamamoto nods in understanding and turns away. "I'll help you, Chrome," the baseball player murmurs to the girl. He hauls Mukuro over his back, supporting one side while she handles the other.

A flash of gratitude passes through him, but he's too stressed and too anxious to form words. Reborn would probably kick his face inward at this point, but really, considering the matters at hand - nobody can say he doesn't have the right to be a little more brusque than usual. He lingers behind with Gokudera, watching his Guardians carry Mukuro back to the meeting point with the others.

Behind him, I-Pin finishes up her make-shift bandaging and saunters over to his side, Lambo just a few steps behind her. "Sorry about the mess we made," she comments, as if striking up a conversation about the weather. "That building we were in got turned to rubble, but those issues can wait. The others?"

Tsuna frowns. "We left Ken and Chikusa at the entrance with the others. M.M. already knocked Ken out because he was struggling too much and was going to start using his channels."

A small part of him marvels at his ability to speak so calmly to the twenty-five-year-old version of a certain Chinese assassin.

"This is bad timing, we know," Lambo says, ignoring Gokudera's wary eye trained on them as the teenager snaps into his phone. "But there was something we should've mentioned before. It's rather important."

"The bazooka was set to send us exactly twenty years into the past," I-Pin says with a sheepish smile. "But, you know, long story short, we can't make our move just yet. The information we need is only available after a certain point in time, which happens to be the 4th of February next year. That's around...four months from today, November 8th. So in other words, for the next four months..."

"We need a place to stay," Lambo tells the dumbfounded brunet. And then, to add to Tsuna's mounting disbelief, the man lowers one knee onto the dirt-caked cement, and then...

* * *

_t.b.c._

jiejie - "sister" (Chinese)

Oni dolzhny znat'. My ne mozhem uderzhat' ikh ot znaya ob ikh detstve koshmar. Mukuro budet v yarosti. Ken i Chikusa tozhe. - "They need to know. We can't keep them from knowing about their childhood nightmare now. Mukuro would be furious. Ken and Chikusa, too." (Russian)

Thunder Parete - "thunder wall" (English/Italian)

**Endnotes:** POV is hard. plot continuity is hard. writing is hard - who knew, really?

anyway, i hope you enjoyed the chapter. if some of the things lambo and i-pin have said are a bit confusing, don't worry - most of it should hopefully be cleared up next chapter. also, i wasn't kidding about the angst in the warnings on the first page. like, that's there. and there's a lot of it.

and the estraneo are back! oh, this is going to be fun.

thanks for reading and stay tuned! since finals are approaching at a daunting pace, chapter three will be posted in two or three weeks. to my fellow students: good luck (:


	3. a crescendo of laughter

**Author's Commentary:** has it been two weeks? i'm not really sure. have another chapter.

* * *

...bows her head slightly, right fist pressed against left palm. "I apologize, Nana-san," twenty-five-year-old I-Pin says with a winning smile and a polite tone of voice that must have taken years to perfect. "The food looks delicious, but I'm afraid I'll have to miss breakfast today. I'm running a bit late for work. However, Ram will be glad to join you shortly."

"Oh, it's no problem!" Mama waves her spatula, light and forgiving. "Do try to pick something up before you get to the office, alright? Skipping breakfast is never healthy, Chun."

"Of course," 'Chun' says, sweeping past the other woman into the living room. Reborn follows the movement, noting the way her feet fall soundlessly against the floor, and - after a moment's contemplation - hops off the windowsill to follow her.

Yesterday, Lambo and I-Pin from twenty years into the future came to their time in the middle of a full-out battle with the Ladro Famiglia. The former was able to use his flames to negate the effects of Tsuna's paralysis in a matter of seconds, while the latter took advantage of the Ladro boss's brief confusion and grounded him with only one technique and no more than three blows. Even before that, Reborn noticed the commotion ceasing inside the house before the two made their appearance, which signified that their involvement began well more than five minutes before they intervened with Tsuna's fight.

Naturally, Reborn was suspicious. He's met his fair share of illusionists, impersonators, false people claiming to be real. He didn't become one of the most important figures in the mafia by being careless.

Later, though, all of his suspicions were proven wrong after the chaotic explanation of their appearance. Mukuro and the others were taken to Shamal's care (Hibari didn't greet them as they stepped onto Namimori High grounds, possibly being preoccupied with some yakuza in the distant parts of the city), and Reborn learned that the time travelers had asked for a sort of favor from Tsuna. His student, being the person he is, accepted the plea and gave them permission to stay in their house until they were ready to leave this world for their own.

His student is an idiot for making such a hasty decision, but then again, no amount of time would've changed his mind.

Then, as they headed back to the Sawada household well past midnight (the men he called to clean up the bodies in the house left a few hours before, leaving the place clean and spotless), the future Lambo and I-Pin agreed to discuss things further when everyone was in a more peaceful state of mind. Tsuna's Guardians split up and they went their separate ways. Reborn knew a long meaningful discussion on the time travelers' plans would be in store for tomorrow.

Now that it _is_ tomorrow, Reborn's mind is already filling with questions.

One of them is exactly how thoroughly I-Pin and Lambo - or Chun and Ram, now - have planned this whole operation of theirs. Time travelling is never something to meddle with unnecessarily. The Bovino Famiglia already prohibit any unauthorized manufacturing of their bazookas, and they go through great lengths to keep the power of time from falling into greedy hands. Lambo is an exception, since he was more of a _gift_ to the Vongola than anything else, but the cow has never breathed a word about what he sees in the future to anyone in the present (or maybe he doesn't have enough intelligence to think of spreading information about his experiences). The Bovino drill into their children the importance of secrets at a young age.

The only reason it was acceptable for Tsuna and the others to linger in the future last year is because if they hadn't, Byakuran would've won, the Vongola would be wiped out, and the Millefiore would succeed in taking over the mafia, the entire underground, and possibly the world. Desperate times called for desperate measures.

So either the Estraneo Famiglia has done something equally as drastic in the future to cause time travelling to become a viable option, or Chun and Ram just didn't think through their options - but Reborn doubts his student would allow his Guardians to go through with this plan of theirs if there was anything better to do. And why only send the two of them? That doesn't make any sense.

A sense of unease stirs within him. The news about the Estraneo still being alive already introduces a formidable threat to the Vongola and their allies. It doesn't help that it's been less than a day since they came to the past and he's already noticed Chun and Ram's irregular behaviors. None of them slept well that night, including he and Tsuna, but immediately after being introduced to their sleeping vicinities (the couch and the last guest bedroom available), the two enigmas decided out of the house and onto the roof to hold an entire conversation in _Kirundi_ for the rest of the night - and while he can recognize what Kirundi sounds like, simply because he's that good, he's never had to use or try to understand the language.

After a while, around the time when the sun was beginning to rise, the two time travelers lapsed into silence - and it occurred to Reborn that they weren't just up there to talk. They were keeping watch.

Tsuna might have noticed it, too, because at six in the morning, his student blinked his bleary eyes at the ceiling and frowned. It could have been his Hyper Intuition giving him a tip - nobody could be sure. Reborn was tempted to shoot a bullet at him for thinking too loud, but decided against it. If the time travelers feel the need to watch over the household, even with two former Arcobaleno being residents, they must be facing formidable enemies in their world. Too formidable for his liking.

At nine, Chun and Ram came down and introduced themselves to Mama using fake names (which is logical, since two pairs of people with the same name living underneath the same roof can quickly cause problems), spinning a story about being former colleagues and current friends with Reborn, and how they need a place to stay for a while because of recent job changes - as well as their aversion to hotels because of some mildly traumatizing incident several years back involving a suicide jumper and loud police sirens. It's an unbelievable story for most people, but Mama isn't really most people at all, and Chun and Ram even offered to help tutor Tsuna (in learning Bulgarian, apparently) to make up for their stay.

Needless to say, Mama welcomed them with open arms, especially after Ram faked a relieved sigh and Chun bowed until her head brushed the floor, as if the house-wife is some sort of grand saint for offering her hospitality to them.

It's been an hour since then, and the two of them have already decided on some sort of course of action.

"You're missing breakfast?" he prompts Chun, turning his thoughts back to the present. "I thought you were 'eternally grateful' for Mama's 'overwhelming kindness'."

She chortles. "But we mustn't impose, dear Reborn."

He quirks an eyebrow under the brim of his hat at the 'dear' tacked on before his name. "Where are you going?"

"Into the city. We like being sure of our surroundings." She blinks at him. Smiles. "Ram will go over their plans - and ours - in detail when you're ready. Feel free to ask him any questions, yeah? Oh, but we won't answer any questions about the future that aren't necessary, as usual. Don't want to mess with the past too much."

Reborn watches her like a hawk as she wraps a sheet of gold fabric around her waist and tightens it with a string. Her other clothes were torn by the end of the battle with Mukuro and were burned to erase the scent of blood. He snorts at her last sentence. "It's too late for that. You've already stayed here for more than eight hours, and just by telling us about the fact that the Estraneo survived, you've given away more information than you should. The changes you've made are beyond any repair." Why the cow, who should really know better than to meddle with time, agreed to this plan of theirs is beyond the hitman's comprehension.

"Yes, which is why we'll do you a favor sometime." A wild grin; he sees something harsh and lethal etched into that line. "Ram can explain that, too. And so long as we don't tell you anything other than things related to the Estraneo, your future should go along just fine. We won't let anything slip, don't worry."

After contemplating those words, he hums and tilts his fedora upward. "When will you be back?"

Chun shrugs. "Well after dinner. Since I'm looking to walk around for a bit, you could expect me...around midnight, I suppose."

That late? "Fon wants to talk to you."

In the middle of turning away, she pauses. "He said so?"

"No," Reborn admits. "But he makes it obvious enough. I-Pin is curious about you, too." He gives a small frown, expecting her to offer up a bigger reaction - brightened eyes, an agreement to return earlier, some motion or gesture of enthusiasm - but Chun simply looks away. Thinks for a moment.

"I'll be back around midnight," she repeats, staring at a blank patch of wall in the direction of the sound of clattering forks and morning conversation. "I should also check with Mukuro and his kids. They're still hanging around Namimori High, aren't they?"

With an inaudible sigh, the infant acquiesces her unspoken refusal. Fon will end up cornering her sooner or later, and according to the information he's gathered so far, they still have four long months left. His curiosities will be indulged eventually. "Yeah, but Mukuro isn't the type to accept the hospitality of others. He'll go back to Kokuyo as soon as he can." Especially with Hibari lingering around, but then again, the Mist Guardian is adept at evading others.

"I'll check there, too, then," Chun says. The hitman tips his hat and begins heading back to the dining table, mind already preoccupied on other thoughts.

"Reborn."

He stops and turns around. "Hm?"

She wears a puzzling face. Old eyes, a certain curl to her smile; all of it screams of nostalgia. "How long has it been since the curse broke?"

The infant narrows his eyes. There's only one curse that could be referred to, and it's gone now, thank the heavens. It was an incredibly close call, too - the participants of the final battle came close to losing everything. The Arcobaleno themselves had nothing left to lose. "It's been around a year, now," he replies, thinking back over the past months. "Why?"

Chun barks a laugh. "It's nothing, really. Just that I haven't seen you so small in a long time." A fleeting, sharp-toothed grin. "You get a bit taller in the future."

When Reborn doesn't respond, she leaves the room, her tail-like braid fluttering behind her. He waits until he hears the door click shut before continuing along his way, a frown crossing his features. "Your student doesn't seem eager to see you," he comments to the figure leaning against the frame.

Fon's brow furrows, but the martial artist says nothing.

The hitman eyes his old comrade. "How much did you hear?"

"All of it," Fon replies, meeting his gaze. The lingering concern in his eyes is faint, but present. "I-pi - Chun has barely looked at me since coming here. She's...difficult to understand."

The Storm user's last statement is accurate enough. Reborn considers himself to be better at reading people than Fon is. Part of the reason why he's so good at what he does, including 'reading minds' and judging his enemies, is because he can pick out the little nuances in someone's character. Downward, left-bound eyes reveals the beginnings of a lie; a tense line across the shoulders, no matter how minute, displays a wide variety of anxiety levels; unless fake, stretching limbs shows that a person is comfortable enough to assert dominance. He's been thrown into countless dangerous situations and knows how to counter almost every single one, so long as he pays attention to the people around him.

Despite his skill at observing human behavior, he has to admit that almost nothing slipped past Chun's smile. Her face and body language, at least, don't offer much explanation for her actions. Anything that goes between Fon and his apprentice shouldn't really be his concern, but the abrupt turn-around in Chun's personality compared to her fifteen-year-old self deserves some thought. The two time-travelers need to be watched, and carefully so.

After a while, the former Storm Arcobaleno sighs. Closes his eyes. Pushes off the wall. Smiles. "There's no point worrying about it now," he says lightly. "Let's go eat, shall we? Ram-san came down, but Tsunayoshi-kun wants to wait until his guardians arrive to hear everything he has to say."

Reborn watches the martial artist walk away, making a bee-line for the kitchen area. The tail-like braid whipping around the corner strikes a sense of deja vu. He follows the black cord and steps...

* * *

...into the room, a wide grin splitting her face. "Pardon me, children."

After a split-second of hesitation, Chrome recognizes the future I-Pin's face and lowers the trident materialized in her hand, steadying the tip against the floor. She can't quite convince herself to let it dissipate. Behind her, M.M. and Flan stand up, and Ken jerks his head up so quickly she fears he might suffer from whiplash. Chikusa doesn't stir from his seat against the wall, and Mukuro just stares at the woman with harsh eyes and a thin mouth, sharing no smirk and spreading no laughter.

The future I-Pin tosses a plastic bag onto one of the empty, moth-eaten couches and sits on the armrest. Her sunny smile doesn't fit in with the atmosphere. "I brought lunch, since I doubt you've eaten yet. You couldn't have rested in Namimori High for a while longer? I had to turn down the bug-doctor and his fantastic pick-up lines." She looks Mukuro up and down, taking in the bandages. "By the way, did everyone sleep well? No nightmares? Blissfully blank unconsciousness?"

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Ken snarls, glaring at her with all the hostility he can muster through his blood-shot eyes.

"I'll take that as a no." She laughs, and Chrome is caught between befuddlement and extreme dislike (though not quite hatred). There's no way this woman can be ignorant enough to tease them after they've recently received some of the most horrific news they've ever heard in their lives, but oh, wait - she's doing that right now, isn't she?

M.M. feels the same, because she steps forward with her clarinet in her hands and a savageness in her teeth. "Shut up, you damn woman!"

"Ah, now M.M. is going to kill you," Flan tells the future I-Pin monotonously (as always). "You're not very bright, huh. Coming to a place where you're not welcome is pretty stupid." And that's the illusionists dead-pan way of telling her to - bluntly put - screw off.

Instead of recognizing the immediate need to run away or apologize or anything, the woman props her chin up on one hand and surveys them. "Well, I _ought_ to be welcome, seeing as Lambo and I have a few plans that get directly involved with the Estraneo, and you might want to hear some of it. This is your world's enemy, after all." She holds up a finger when Ken opens her mouth and Chrome stiffens in surprise. "Obviously, this sharing time is nothing more than a courtesy. We will go through with Operation X whether you like it or not, unless you have some sort of alternative action in mind, and we aren't inclined to reveal anything about the future unless it suits us. I hope you understand."

Chrome frowns at that, a sense of distrust tugging at her mind. In other words, the only reason the future Lambo and I-Pin told them about the Estraneo still being alive is because they didn't want to keep Mukuro and the others in the dark, nothing more. She can't help but be bothered by how one-sided that is.

With another smile, the future I-Pin reaches down and pulls out a black box from the bag. Chrome watches in disbelief as she opens up the bento and pops two slices of broiled salmon into her mouth. "Bu' b'fore all 'at, I'm 'aving lunsh. Ish good, you shou' try shome," she says through her cheeks.

When no one gives an immediate response, the woman swallows (after what, five chews?) and stares at them with some hint of disapproval. Chrome tenses at the unreadable expression in her eyes.

Because those eyes are darkening, all of a sudden, like the foreshadowing of a storm, and they've seem to have seen far too much.

"Did you know," she starts softly. "That when you heard about the Estraneo's survival thirteen years into the future, you did the exact same thing? Chikusa broke down like a machine, Ken threw a tantrum, and Mukuro went out and destroyed everything he could get his hands on until he was burning in his own flames. We found the nearby forests turned to ashes." She laughs at the memory and picks at her heaping of rice. "So _fragile_, aren't you?"

Mukuro glances up sharply, his attention fully focused on her for the first time since she came through the door. The other two boys twitch and stare and make little painful sounds inside their throats.

The future I-Pin's smile turns wry. "It got worse when everyone realized the Estraneo would be more difficult to get rid of than we thought. We got cut up trying to pick up all your metaphorical pieces, and - well, it wasn't a pretty sight for anyone. But lucky for you, in this time, the Estraneo can still be dealt with and destroyed." She leans forward, pinning them with her gaze. "And since they _will_ be destroyed, in the end, this little phase of pent-up hatred and negativity and vengeful plotting of yours is absolutely meaningless. Isn't it?"

She pulls out another bento box and offers it to M.M, the nearest person within reach. "So I insist you eat, even if you don't feel like it. Doesn't matter if you pick at it like vultures and eat only a couple of things. Skipping lunch isn't healthy." Her eyes settle on Mukuro's mis-matched ones. "And while you eat, you can provide me with some answers to a few things I'm quite curious about."

After a full five seconds of hesitation (in which M.M. wavers on the spot and I-Pin's offering hand never drops), the clarinet player takes the box and sneers at the woman, despite looking entirely unsure of herself. Then, the future I-Pin holds one out for Flan, who raises his eyebrows and eyes the thing like it's covered in contamination - but ends up taking it anyway.

And finally, finally, Chrome sees Mukuro smirk, albeit with a trace of reluctance - as if he never asked for it to appear on his face. "How charitable of you," he drawls. "And what sort of answers have you been seeking?"

"Mukuro-sama," Chrome says, too quiet for anyone else to hear. She stops when she doesn't know what to say after that, but she feels relieved, really relieved, and also terrified.

The future I-Pin grins in the middle of reaching for the next box. "Well, seeing as we only arrived in this world yesterday, and the only memories we have of this time are twenty-years-old...

* * *

...you can start by telling me more about the current events around here," Ram says, nursing the cup of coffee in his hands. He leans back into the sofa, letting his form be swallowed by the pillows. "Anything interesting?"

Reborn settles himself down on the armrest of the long couch, while Fon's folds his legs neatly on the cushions above him. His student, after a short pause, sits on the floor next to the coffee table with Lambo in his lap. Bianchi leans against the wall, arms collapsed over her chest, and Fuuta and I-Pin join Tsuna after a heartbeat of uncertainty.

"Not much, really," the brunet says, pondering the past with a frown. "Nothing mafia-related, anyway, besides that thing with the Ladro Famiglia and a couple other skirmishes here and there. Gokudera-kun, Yamamoto-kun and I started high school, and summer break ended about a week ago."

Ram hums in acknowledgement, displaying nonchalance. He fiddles with the handle of his mug, eyes flickering through his memories too quickly for anyone to catch. "How's your studies going? I remember making fun of you because you were having trouble with math at first."

Tsuna pales to a ghostly shade. The hitman feels like hitting him. "Twenty years into the future and you still remember-"

Lambo bursts into squeaky, childish, annoying laughter. "Dame-Tsuna doesn't know how to do allegra!" he crows.

I-Pin frowns at the toddler's outburst. "Lambo! Be nice!"

"It's called 'algebra', Lambo," his student says with a sigh, reverting back to a normal, healthier pigment. "And yeah, I was struggling at first," he continues for the time-traveler. "But my friends have been helping me through and I think I'm starting to get the hang of it, so..."

Ram takes a sip of his beverage. "Hm. And this should be around the time you two start going to school, right?" he asks I-Pin and his younger self.

The cow's face scrunches into some sort of unrecognizable cabbage. "Yeah, but school is boring and no fun! All the other kids are stupid and the teachers won't let me play whenever I want, and Tail-head doesn't even have to go to school 'cause her master's here, and there's nothing to do."

"Huh," Ram says to the ceiling as I-Pin splutters and scolds the cow and Tsuna laughs with only a thread of nervousness in the sound. He sighs - the sound expresses minor exhaustion, but also contentment. He closes his eyes two seconds too long to be a blink. Opens them. Glances to the side. "And why're you here, Fon? Just visiting?"

The martial artist tilts his head in affirmation. "Yes, I've been wanting to check up on my student's progress." A tranquil smile. "I must say, it was quite a surprise to see two versions of her, one being older than I recall."

An unbidden snort escapes Ram. "Chun's not your student anymore, you know." He catches Fon's questioning glance and carries on. "Long story short, you guys ended the apprenticeship after you started losing against her every time you fought. She mastered everything you taught her. The whole student-mentor thing wasn't necessary anymore."

The cow shrugs his broad shoulders and actually smirks. "Don't be too surprised. She was bound to surpass you eventually."

Fon's expression - which has widened a touch in astonishment - smooths back into something pleasant, and he chuckles into his hand. "True," he says. Reborn would have to be deaf to not notice the absolute pride in that one word, as well as the merriment accompanying it.

The hitman himself is slightly surprised, and more than a little impressed. He never knew Fon's reason for taking on a student, and he never took the time to analyze I-Pin long enough to see her full potential. For her to surpass the former Storm Arcobaleno, one of the strongest infants in the world, is no meager feat - even if the event takes place ten, twenty years from now. He casts a quick glance toward the girl, who flushes brightly and stares with wide-eyed wonder between Ram and her master, having trouble believing in her own - future - accomplishments.

Ram notices her reaction and leans forward. "Of course, none of that is going to happen if you don't work hard," he warns, olive eye drilling a hole into her head. "Not that you need the reminder, right?"

I-Pin swallows and straightens up. "Y-Yes, I will try my best!"

Visibly appeased, he falls back into the cushions. Reborn gets the feeling that the time-traveler only intimidated her for his own amusement; his suspicions are proven correct when Ram chuckles - a deep, rumbling sound. "Anyway," he says, turning to the former Sun Arcobaleno. "How's the Vongola doing?"

Reborn tilts his fedora down. "Fine. The Ninth's been holding up well, as have Vongola's allies." With the exception of the Trad 6, which is currently fighting in an ongoing war against the Macchina Famiglia, but they shouldn't need any assistance from the Vongola to win. This information isn't relevant to Ram, but it's not like revealing anything from the past would hurt his world - unlike the situation vise-versa, where any information from the future could alter the past beyond repair.

"Hey, Ram!" Lambo shouts, drawing attention to him and his waving fists. He looks up at his older counterpart and asks, with an eagerness that tempts Reborn to whip out his gun and shoot stars into the kid's head, "Do I get to assassinate Reborn in the future?"

To Reborn's surprise, Ram deflates on the spot, a regretful look in his eye. "I'm normally not supposed to answer questions like that, but...sorry, kid, you have no idea how many times I tried-"

He cuts himself off as Leon, molded into a pistol that slips into Reborn's stout fingers, shoots off a round of bullets that fly through the air. Great dismay strikes the hitman when he notices none of the projectiles have met their intended target. "_Cazzo!_" Ram swears, running a hand through his hair as he pulls himself upright. "What was that for?"

Reborn smirks as smoke rises from the tip of the barrel. "First of all, don't swear in front of the kids. Second of all, don't think you can get away with insulting me just because you're from the future."

Ram merely raises his eyebrows. "First of all, they'll pick up every swear word in existence from the Varia sooner or later. Second of all, that wasn't even an insult. Thirdly, you're never going to stop being a two-year-old bastard-"

The cow never gets to finish his sentence. Reborn feels warm satisfaction well up in his chest as his foot slams into the man's face, toppling him over against the couch. Then, the hitman leaps up onto the cushions next to Fon, who gives him an exasperated look. He ignores it.

"Hey, Reborn!" the younger cow shrieks, having been distracted from his moping after hearing that he never manages to kill the hitman. "Don't hurt my future self! I'll - I'll kill you!"

Ram groans, hands hiding his face. "Please do, kid. Wow, you bastard, I think you just broke my nose in."

Reborn feels no remorse in taking sadistic pleasure out of the sight before him. "Don't be such a weakling. If that's all it takes for it to break, you need more training."

"Keep your training methods away from me, damn you. I can't even feel my face anymore. Wow. I'm hiring Chun to assassinate you."

He scoffs, taking note that Chun apparently lives up to her potential as an assassin in the future. "That just shows you're not good enough to kill me by yourself, cow."

"_Vaffanculo, _Reborn."

Before Reborn can decide between detonating bombs beneath the man's feet or smashing his bruising face into the window (the latter would be more effective if he can break the glass and utilize the shards to inflict more damage) for insulting him a fourth time, Ram pulls his hands away from his nose and glares at him. Despite the fact that the cow is definitely trying to murder him with invisible daggers, Reborn isn't an idiot. He can see the staggering amount of emotion pooling into that one eye - soft, warm, bright, harsh, and cold all at once - and for a moment, he's not quite sure what to make of the overwhelming _respect_ staring back at him.

It's particularly strange because respect is a humble thing, and the last thing anyone can expect from Lambo is modesty. Not to mention the feeling is entirely out of context; moments ago, they were busy throwing scathing remarks at each other, and now this. He has no idea where it could have come from.

The doorbell rings.

Ram blinks. The respect in his eye melts away as if they never existed in the first place.

"I'll get it," Tsuna says, rising to his feet. Reborn glimpses the bemusement on the brunet's face, as well as traces of confusion. So his student caught the respect as well - which is good, because the home tutor doesn't have to waste energy beating him up for not being observant. The boy rises to his feet, gently nudging Lambo off his lap in the process.

"Um, Ram-san?" Fuuta pipes up as Tsuna's gravity-defying hair disappears down the hall. The Ranking Prince fiddles with his hands, eyes alight with the spirit of inquiry. "What are things like, in the future? How is everyone?"

Ram tilts his head. Sighs. Huffs a laugh. "I can't say, Fuuta. No questions about the future."

The Ranking Prince wilts in mild disappointment. He opens his mouth to speak again, but their gathering is interrupted by...

* * *

...the woman's laugh, striking the air like bells. She offers a delightful smile in his direction. "That's what you want to know first, above all else? Really?"

His smirk widens. This woman, this time-traveler who plays the role of fortune-teller and destruction-bringer, is so very interesting - she really is. The little China girl (a friend of his dear Chrome, was it?) holds no resemblance to the figure sitting in front of him, and yet she is meant to grow into the woman's shoes. The differences between worlds is a marvel to behold, he thinks.

And this woman has seen many things in the twenty years between then and now, if her eyes are anything to go by. They're pretty eyes, the same color as the tips of his trident - the same color as the trident she could withstand as he threw all of his might against her, which is a thing to be acknowledged. But he prefers it when those eyes turn red, the same as the one of his own.

And he wants to hate this woman for failing to destroy the Estraneo Famiglia in her time, but he has no qualms with being enlightened, despite how horrible the truth of this world may be. Truth is despicable and frightening and liberating. He's known that since he was six years old and strapped onto a cold, metal table, and the faces of his former mothers and fathers never looked more sincere as they readied to plunge him into a world of blood-lust.

And this woman is willing to cooperate, if her generous meals and honest words are anything to go by. She is not willing to strike a deal, but rather, offer a gift. Mukuro isn't one to accept donations from others, but this time, he is willing to make an exception.

So Mukuro smiles at her with fake cheer and ignores her mocking words. "Why, of course. If you've resorted to using the cow's weapon to solve your problems, then the Estraneo must be causing you more trouble than you can bear. So tell me - what are they up to in the future?"

The woman laughs again and sets her bento box on the ground. "Well, I suppose this is a good way to start things off." She stares at one of the walls, pulling her thoughts together. "If you must know, they've been running around, taking out a few of Vongola's bases. We've been struggling with casualties, wounds - some of our men are missing, but we don't bother trying to find them since there's a high chance they've been taken captive by the Estraneo for their experiments."

Experiments, she says casually, but her eyes tell a very detailed story and Mukuro knows she understands.

"Like we said before, they've been a thorn in our side for quite some time now," she continues. "But really, strength-wise, they're easy to pick off. Their skill is in their inventions, weaponry, and ability to do all this research and scientific discovery in the shortest amounts of time. They're good at hiding their bases, hacking our databases, and remaining undetected overall. But if you strip away their manufactured weapons, they're still incredibly weak."

"So why haven't you killed them off?" Ken sneers at her. "Or are the Vongola just useless fools?"

She snickers. "Useless fools? Maybe. Most of our counter-attacks have failed, after all." Mukuro hears a cold thread weave into her voice, solemn steel pressing against fabric. Her eyes sweep past them. "X-451208."

He narrows his eyes. "Pardon?"

"X-451208. Do you know of it?"

"What is it?" Chikusa asks for all of them, meaning _no_, they really don't. The boy has finally stopped his lifeless slumping against the wall, now choosing to hunch over in a cross-legged position without looking any less distant than before.

"451208." The woman's voice cuts through the room with a peculiar sort of intensity. "4, 5, 1, 20, 8. Replace the numbers with their corresponding English letters and you have X-DEATH, a coded name for the most dangerous drug the Estraneo have created for the sole purpose of defeating the Vongola - no, more specifically, the tenth generation of the Vongola boss and his Guardians. Since the beginning, the Estraneo's goal was to become the most influential mafia famiglia in existence and rise up from their state of exile. While the Vongola is no longer considered a true criminal syndicate due to its actions and ideals, it is allied to multiple mafia famiglies and is by far the strongest and most respected of all criminal organizations. It's no surprise that defeating us would become their primary objective."

There is a slight pause before she speaks again; Mukuro finds himself leaning in for her next words. "They knew they had no chance of defeating us in a war. So they created a drug. A poison. They spent years and years developing a solution that would render us incapable of fighting back, and would refuse to break down if we tried to purge it from someone's system, so it would be next to impossible for us to find a cure."

She meets Chrome's horrified gaze and smiles. "What this drug does, you see, is devour and destroy Dying Will Flames. Once you get a dose of it - and it doesn't matter how, whether you eat it or drink it or get a little scratch by an infected weapon, or if you get it on your hands and can't wash it off fast enough - your Flames start to deplete at a rapid rate. After a few hours, you won't be able to create any Flames at all. Most of our victims could last up to a day, despite having their flame output being destroyed in less than a couple of hours. Some held on until a week. Pure flames, or people with large quantities of their flame, can fight against the drug for a longer period of time."

"So once you got hit, you couldn't fight back," Ken concludes. "And then the Estraneo would kill you."

The woman chuckles. "Close, but no. The drug does all the work. Tell me, what do you know about flame exhaustion?"

In the corner of his eye, M.M. stiffens and crosses her arms. "That's when you use too much power at once, or you just run out of flames, and your body shuts down from the pressure. Mukuro-chan - " Mukuro expertly ignores her glance in his direction. "Mukuro-chan went through that, after you battled him."

"Yes. Now, let's connect some things together." The woman twines her fingers together and grins in a ridiculous, almost patronizing manner. "You have a drug, X-DEATH, that eats flames. You have the knowledge that losing too much of your flames in a short amount of time can lead to life-threatening conditions."

His dear, empathetic Chrome pales a few shades and brings a hand up to her mouth.

"So they die," Ken says, to summarize things.

The woman claps her hands together. "Exactly. Nice work, Ken." She ignores the snarl he gives her and turns back to meet Mukuro's eyes. "X-DEATH forces a body to its limits by tricking it into thinking that it needs to replenish the flames that are being lost. So it pushes you until you can't take it anymore, and the whole process, I've heard, is quite painful. The only method we could come up with to keep our people alive was the Zero Point Breakthrough, which could freeze the poison in its tracks, but that also meant keeping all the people we used it on in a comatose state."

She smiles brightly. "So, given all that, and the information that X-DEATH can easily enter any human body system, _and_ the fact that all of our researchers' efforts on creating a cure have failed in the most spectacular ways...

* * *

...you could say we weren't all that opposed to the idea of using the bazooka and risk meddling with the past in the process, so long as it would help defeat the Estraneo," Ram says.

Reborn frowns, a question forming around his mouth, but Tsuna beats him to it. "But why would you come to the past at all?" he asks the man, clenching his hands into fists. "You mentioned before about needing to get the information that gets destroyed in the future. What does that mean?"

Ram draws out his sigh and folds his own hands together. "After a few years of dealing with their attacks, Mukuro found something worth looking at in one of the files he managed to steal. It's a log written by the former Estraneo Storm Guardian. From what we could tell, she wasn't supposed to be keeping any sort of record on his famiglia's actions, but was arrogant enough to think nobody would find it." Ram shows scorn for his adversary through dark, shuttered eyes, reminiscent of a house with locked doors. "Apparently, the Estraneo created and developed their own cure, for their own drug."

Reborn can scarcely believe his ears. A cure for their own drug? "How careless of them," he voices out loud.

"No, actually," Ram replies. "During its development, the Estraneo made X-DEATH, and then came up with some sort of remedy to cancel out the effects, just to see if defeating their own creation was - is - actually possible. That's how they work. Then, they started modifying the drug to make it so the cure wouldn't work anymore - but according to the log, they couldn't. The drug couldn't be made incurable without losing all of its key properties. They sent it to all their researchers. Nothing worked.

"So, only a few days after they finished their work on the drug, they destroyed the cure. They erased all of the information they used to put it together. They didn't want to do it, since that meant the drug could potentially be used against them, which is why they'd be extremely careful later on to make sure it didn't fall into our hands. Anyway, all evidence of any sort of remedy was wiped out - except for the data contained in one of the old drives Mukuro found when he infiltrated their old research facility, a few days later. It doesn't say anything about how to cure the drug, but it confirms the fact that a cure used to exist."

Ram meets their gazes without hesitation, smoldering determination in those depths. "The information about the cure gets sent to every Estraneo base on February 4th of this year. The order to destroy it gets sent out on February 10th."

The hitman reels in a breath as implications hit and the pieces fall into place.

"You want to retrieve this information and use it to gain an advantage against the Estraneo in your world," Fon says, keeping his voice mild. "Is that right, Ram-san?"

At Ram's curt nod, the Guardians don wide-eyed and open-mouthed expressions. Yamamoto's eyes slide back to the man. "So...So then-"

The Bovino presents them with the barest of smiles, a far cry from Chun's unreadable grins. "And that's where our plan, Operation X, comes in. The Estraneo's earliest move, from what we can track, takes place in four months. We weren't planning on having to wait that long, but we were hard-pressed on time, and at least this gives us time to prepare. Anyway, the 26th of January is the day when the Estraneo finish moving into their new main base next to Nagano," he says.

Reborn frowns at this new development. "Nagano? That's only thirty minutes away from Namimori. They'd be hiding right beneath our noses."

"Caught on, haven't you?" Ram says satirically. "It's the only place where the cure was available before it got erased. Nagano is close enough for them to keep an eye on your movements without directly sending spies. It's actually not a problem, since they don't want to risk getting caught on any surveillance missions, but they can keep track of any major conflicts going on in the area." His mouth tilts downward. "It's also to keep an eye on Mukuro, but they won't try to do anything to him yet."

"'Yet'?" Tsuna repeats, a note of warning simmering underneath.

"The key word in that sentence is actually 'try'," Ram counters smoothly. "But nothing's going to happen in this world now that you're aware of the danger, so don't worry about it. Anyway, since they won't be risking themselves by sending out spies or trackers, we - as in Chun and I - won't have to hide while they finish up their base. And since they won't be expecting us, we won't have any trouble infiltrating their hideout - which is called the Sector, by the way - and getting hold of the cure."

Tsuna cuts in again, his hand slamming against the table. "W-Wait! You're just going to infiltrate it, just like that? That's really not a good idea, is it?" he asks, dismay knitting his eyebrows together.

Ram tilts his head and says, "The only reason why the Estraneo are a threat is because of the drug. So long as you have the element of surprise, it's not that hard to sneak in and out without anyone noticing. Mukuro's done it countless times in our world."

After a moment or two, his student subsides, albeit reluctantly. "Alright," he replies, running a hand through his hair. "Alright. So you'll infiltrate their base and get the cure. And then you send yourselves back to your time, defeat the Estraneo, and that's the end of it. Right?"

"Wrong," says Ram. "After we get a sample of the cure, we'll share it the Irie Shoichi of this world, who should be able to replicate it and give it to you, just in case. Then, to make up for everything, we'll go back and get rid of everyone in the Sector, and take out their other four bases as well. So long as we can get the cure and use it to destroy the Estraneo, everything will be fine, and then-"

He never gets farther than that. While everyone stiffens in surprise, Gokudera and Sasagawa burst into exclamation, while Yamamoto's voice provides an undertone for the sudden cacophony. "What do you mean 'four other bases', huh?" shouts the Storm Guardian, bristling at the man. "You didn't think about mentioning those other bases before? Isn't that supposed to be a big problem?"

Tsunayoshi reaches for Sasagawa's sleeve and waves an urgent hand at the other two. "Guys, guys! Calm down!"

"There shouldn't be any problems," Ram says, his tenor effectively shutting up the room. "After we get the cure and confirm that it works, we'll give it to you. Then, we'll get rid of their bases, which are only five in total. The Estraneo need to be annihilated completely this time. And then, after they disappear from this world, we'll go back to our own and do the same."

"So, in other words, you want us to leave everything to you," Tsuna summarizes.

Ram inclines his head. "That's one way of putting it."

The brunet wavers in place, looking ready to speak against the courses of action, but the man catches his uncertainty and offers a ghostly smile. "There's no need to worry. We'll take care of them. You're all strong in your own right, but the Estraneo are...

* * *

...too dangerous to be your enemies," she says. "Not at your age, not with your skills. Not this time. Not ever."

"Oh?" Mukuro rises to his feet, slow and controlled and lethal - a predator's movement. His eyes bore into I-Pin's with two different hues. "I don't believe I gave you the option to disagree."

His voice sends chills wracking down Chrome's spine. She could almost feel the tension in his body mounting as the woman explained the outline of their operation (which was punctuated with bell-like laughs and bright, shining eyes that were impossible to read). And she knew, knew before he could even speak the words, that he wants to be a part of this grand plan to end the people who once damned Ken and Chikusa and him.

But the future I-Pin shuts him down as soon as he proclaims his intention to fight, and all Chrome can think is _why would you deny him such a thing? He wants to take revenge on the people who hurt him beyond repair, how dare you refuse him that right?_

Because a part of her is thrumming, deep and strong as the marrow in her bones. A part of her wants to make the Estraneo disappear with her help, her doing. The others feel the same, because Flan has stood up and M.M. is vibrating with a storm of emotions that can't be erased. Ken and Chikusa also rise, each taking their place at Mukuro's side. Here they are, tall and able, the same power strumming through them as they stare down the woman on the couch who dares to tell them not to take their revenge.

"I will take down the Estraneo," Mukuro says, his voice carrying throughout the room. "What right do you have to stop me?"

The future I-Pin stares at them with piercing grey eyes and slowly, carefully, tilts her head. The air stirs around them, lifting strands of hair and suspending the world in a cloak of invisible energy. "Every right."

Chrome's hands begin to sweat. I-Pin's eyes are a radiant red, the eerie hue standing out so brightly in the dull haze of the room that even her face looks pale in comparison. "Revenge is like a plume of smoke," she says. "It chokes you, burns you, clouds your vision, envelops you whole, and that can't happen this time. You want to fight to make them suffer? So long as you wish for that, you will never protect anything."

Mukuro laughs, but the sound is clearly condescending. He appears unperturbed by the hazardous aura flooding the room. "What would you have us fight for, then?"

"Elimination," the woman replies at once. "Kill the Estraneo, leave none of them alive - that should be your top priority. The Vongola has been put in danger because of our enemy. Personal feelings are irrelevant. Vengeance is irrelevant. If you're serious about destroying one of the most threatening forces you will ever face, you must always go for the kill. This is not a war or a raid. This is an _assassination_. And none of you can pull that off, even if you do get your heads together, because the Estraneo are simply too strong for-"

"And how would you know if we can face them or not?" Chikusa interjects. "It is my understanding that you will only fight them after you obtain the cure. If this X-DEATH will not be a problem, we should have no trouble battling against them."

He gets the receiving end of that crimson stare for his efforts. "When I said before that the Estraneo are weak, I was comparing them to us. Against you, they would be unbearably strong."

Mukuro smirks, undeterred by her words. "If I were to battle one of their Guardians in your time, who would win?" he asks.

The woman tips her head to the side. "Them."

Her counterpart is serious at this point, and his voice has turned into a menacing hiss, sweet and smooth as bell-chimes in her ears. "And in this time, several years before you fight them? When they are most likely considerably weaker than what you might be used to?"

Her lips twitch for some unknown reason. "You'd fair better. But still, them."

"And if I were to use these next four months to prepare myself for the Estraneo?"

She opens her mouth, and pauses, seemingly out of indecision. Chrome counts five bone-chilling seconds before she speaks up again, and this time, her words are carefully slow. "You're willing to train in order to fight? You're willing to dedicate these next four months toward becoming stronger than one of the most powerful enemies you will ever face?"

Lights dance in Mukuro's eyes. "Of course."

A heartbeat of silence. And then another.

A sliver of mirth curls her mouth upward. It spreads into a smile, and then a crescendo of laughter, foreign and hysterical and strangely delighted. Chrome composes herself enough to relax when the thick atmosphere lessens and those red eyes bleed back to grey. After a full fifteen seconds of non-stop cackling, she calms herself long enough to gasp out, "You're just as stubborn in the future, you know that?"

Before Chrome can wonder how Mukuro and the others might respond, how she herself might respond to that abrupt turn in the conversation, the future I-Pin offers a tragic smile. "And still fools, through and through. And we're even bigger fools for not seeing this one coming." She eases herself off the couch and turns to address them, a solemn air about her despite her playful tone. "If you want to fight the Estraneo, there are going to be conditions, and you're going to have to meet them."

Mukuro laughs and brings his trident forward, the action being for both show and threat. "Conditions, you say? What if I refuse?"

"We'll beat you senseless and tie you down to Kokuyo," the woman says without blinking an eye. "Between Lambo - who's going by Ram now, by the way - and I, none of you will get the chance to run off and rampage. In terms of power, Mukuro is the only one closest to us, and I've already beaten him once. You won't be able to run off and fight if we take it upon ourselves to stop you." She cocks her head. "Now, want to hear the rules?"

Ken, lingering at the edges of Chrome's vision, can't hold back his scowl, and the Mist Guardian lowers her one eye to the ground. Everything the future I-Pin has said is true - if she can defeat Mukuro, the strongest of their gang, she can defeat the rest of them as well. And the future Lambo - Ram, that is - is strong, too, if the barrier he set up around Mukuro's raging battle is anything to go by. In the end, if they want to fight the Estraneo, there's no other option than to (reluctantly) succumb to these 'conditions' of hers.

The others end up with the same conclusion, although some of them look more hostile. "Go on, then," Ken growls.

The future I-Pin smiles lightly. "Starting off - training for the next four months. The strength you have now is just barely enough for you to avoid getting incinerated on the spot, especially since we don't know what tricks the Estraneo can conjure up. If you're not ready when the time comes, we'll leave you behind. If you underestimate your opponent, you'll die. Also, we can't have anyone emotionally compromised. Get rid of your vengeful notions and get stronger. That's the first thing."

There is a slight pause. "That won't be a problem," Mukuro says, his trade-mark smirk widening. "Accepted."

"Good. Secondly..." Chrome stiffens as the future I-Pin's eyes swivel over and lock onto hers. "Chrome doesn't fight," she says.

What?

"What?" the girl gasps, staring numbly. She turns to the rest of the gang, all of whom wear expressions of muted surprise. Mukuro is the first to recover, his gaze darting between the two of them, dark and unpredictable.

The woman's words are merciless. "X-DEATH attacks a person's flames, depletes them, and then continues on to destroy the body system. You, however, will be even more vulnerable than the others because your organs are created by illusions. The drug will attack those and the rest of your Mist flames simultaneously, leaving you dying and incapable of fighting back."

Chrome clenches her fists and steps forward. "But - But according to your plan, you should have the cure before you attack the bases. So...if I can have it close while I fight-"

"And if you lose the cure? If the cure ends up needing materials that aren't available on the battlefield? If the enemy takes it from you and leaves you defenseless? If Mukuro or any other Mist Guardian isn't around to keep you alive?" the future I-Pin asks, barraging relentlessly against Chrome's wishes. "Any other person with strong flames can last for a couple of hours before they lose all ability to fight, after being affected by X-DEATH. You, on the other hand, will be put in immediate danger." Suddenly, those grey eyes are silver claws, digging into Chrome's stomach. "You will die out there. Do you understand?"

She does understand, but this isn't - that's not - "I want to help them!" Chrome says, unconsciously raising her voice. "I'll be careful, I won't - I - I can't just-"

"Very well," Mukuro says, his voice ringing through her ears.

Chrome spins around, dismay (and fear, and just a hint of unreasonable betrayal) pressed against her gut. "_Mukuro-sama!_"

He pins her with a stare, firm but not harsh, and a silent _cease and desist_ that she simply cannot comprehend or obey. "If the woman speaks the truth, you will be nothing more than a liability. I will have no need for a girl who can be beaten so easily."

"But that's not-" _Fair_, Chrome almost says, but stops herself. Since when were the things that happened to Mukuro and Ken and Chikusa in the past ever fair? Since when was the world fair? Since when?

"Shut up already!" M.M. snaps in the background, apparently fed up with her efforts. "You heard him - you're not going to do anything useful, so just stay out of it!" But she can barely hear the other girl's voice. Bitterness, clumped up like bile, creates a lump in her throat, and the feeling around her shoulders - cold as cruelty - has her stepping backward behind the others.

The future I-Pin's gaze switches back to Mukuro, and just like that, Chrome is dismissed. "There's one more condition," she says, breezing forward. "Actually, I'd say this one is most important."

"What is it?" Chikusa presses her.

She beams at them, brighter than the sun, and says, "We're going to take your little proposition to Ram. If he says no, you don't fight. Also, you're going to get permission from the boss."

"The boss?" Ken echoes. "You don't mean Vongola, do you? Sawada Tsunayoshi?"

"The very same," I-Pin replies.

The gang freezes on the spot, and Chrome lifts her head. Ken is too flabbergasted to even argue that Boss isn't even _his boss_. If the Estraneo will be their opponents, and it's already been established that they become a major threat in the future, Tsuna will obviously say...

* * *

...no."

Mukuro's smirk widens, but nobody can doubt the glimpse of murder reflected in his heterochromic eyes or the quick clench of his hands. "No?" he repeats.

These are dangerous grounds, Reborn knows. However, despite the tension running taut between Tsuna his Mist Guardian, he can't quite let go of the bemusement he felt when the older boy came to his student, looking bruised but definitely better than last night, his followers wearing expressions ranging from mild humiliation to outright homicide (with the exception of Chrome, who looked uncharacteristically sullen).

Mukuro walked up to them and smirked. Laughed. Then, he bowed his head a few inches toward an astounded Tsuna, before asking in a deceptively angelic voice for permission to fight against the Estraneo.

He even said please.

After Tsuna promptly told him to straighten up again, as a submissive Mukuro was an eerie sight that just didn't look right to anyone present, he turned to Ram. The cow stopped in the middle of a rapid-fire conversation in Bulgarian with Chun to glower at all of them and tell Tsuna just how strong the Estraneo would be, and how likely it was for all of them to die at their current skill level.

Naturally, Tsuna has denied their request. Reborn expected it. After all, that would be any sane boss's reaction.

"Not unless I come with you," his student finishes.

A faint spluttering sound comes from the Kokuyo gang's end, as well as Gokudera's direction. Mukuro's eyes widen. Chun and Ram's heads snap back to pierce the side of Tsuna's head.

The home tutor's mouth twitches into a smile. He expected that, too.

"If the Estraneo are so dangerous, four months of training might not even be enough," the brunet says before anyone else can cut in. "If you really want to do defeat four bases all at once - that's a lot of men each, right? You're going to need more than eight people, even if two of them are stronger than the rest." He tosses them a slightly shaky smile. "You'll have a better chance of winning that way, right?"

Mukuro bursts into a series of chuckles and doubles over.

"No," Ram says, his flat voice carrying over the peals of laughter. "No, absolutely not, Tsuna, that is a bad idea on _so many levels_."

Reborn watches with mild approval as Tsuna doesn't back down, and even if he retracts a little from the man's gaze, his own brown eyes have been polished amber. "Why?" he asks. "Because we'll be in danger? If they're willing to train and fight, then so am I. They'll be less likely to get seriously hurt if there's more help on their side. Besides..." He looks over at Chun. "You're okay with Mukuro and the others fighting, right?"

Chun shrugs. Tilts her hand from side to side. "Ah, well."

Ram narrows his eyes beside her. "_Chun._"

With a smile, she turns toward the other time-traveler (in the background, some of the Kokuyo gang exchanged confused looks, probably unfamiliar with the future I-Pin's new name). "They'll be training hard for the next four months. If they can get strong enough, if they can get smart enough, they'll be fine," she points out. "And they want to do this, don't they? They really do."

The man's single eye slides closed. "We can't always have what we want."

"But they can," she replies, even before he finishes the sentence. Silver orbs flicker with undecipherable thoughts. "Four months of training, Ram."

He looks at her. Sighs again, for what seems to be the tenth time since this morning. Huffs a laugh. Frankly, Reborn is fascinated by the entire exchange that just occurred in the space between their lines of sight, filled with a buzzing of thoughts and silent arguments in a span of less than a couple of seconds. It's the connection he's seen between famiglia members, people who have fought through their lives alongside and can truly understand each other; at the same time, secluding themselves more effectively than any foreign language.

Dino can do the same with nearly all of his famiglia members, much to his tutor's satisfaction. Tsuna is getting there with his own Guardians, slowly but surely. Even so, the bond required for such interaction is rare in the mafia world.

Ram's form slumps. His eye darts between the brunet and the illusionist, overwhelming exasperation carved into his face. "You're going to have to train your asses off before any of this happens. Chrome, you already know you can't fight?"

The girl in question nods, her indigo eye firmly fixated on a patch of lawn. "Why not?" Yamamoto pipes up, a fair amount of concern present in his voice.

Chun shakes her head and says, rather bluntly, "Her organs are made of Dying Will Flames. The drug breaks down Dying Will Flames. She'll have a higher chance of dying than the rest of you."

There's a new thought. Reborn eyes the female Mist Guardian for a moment longer before turning his attention to Gokudera, who takes a step forward. "But we'll be able to fight, right?" he asks (demands, more like). "That pineapple bastard isn't good enough - I'll definitely be there to protect Jyudaime!"

Sasagawa's fist punches the air. "Yeah!" he cheers. "We'll help Mukuro and Tsuna to the extreme! Those guys won't stand a chance!"

"That's right. Since Tsuna's doing this, I guess we should tag along as well. We can be the reinforcements!" Yamamoto tacks on a laugh.

His idiot student whips around to goggle at them. "You...You guys, you don't have to-"

"Dame-Tsuna, don't be ridiculous," Reborn says, stepping forward. A feeling of combined pleasure and irritation settles in his chest. "They're your Guardians - of course they'll be joining you. Besides, a Vongola boss needs to be well-protected against formidable enemies." He peers up at the time-travelers and smirks. "Don't interfere too much. Tsuna and the others can take care of this world's problems. They need the challenge." After all, seeing as they're not even from this time, they shouldn't have any right to prevent them from fighting - or any reason to care about their safety at all, now that he thinks about it.

Ram's eye flashes emerald. Despite the glare being directed towards him, Reborn's interest is peaked. Only a mafioso with a deep affinity for their Dying Will Flame, such as people who enter Dying Will Mode, can enter the same stage where their physical appearance is affected. The change seems to have been sparked by the emotion of frustration. "The Estraneo aren't meant to be just a _challenge_. They're dangerous beyond your imagination."

"In your time, do they really do so much damage?" Yamamoto asks.

The man doesn't even glance in the Rain Guardian's directions as he immediately replies, "They've killed our men and they're damn hard to get rid of. No more questions about the future."

Tsuna speaks up again, rubbing his fingers nervously - Reborn will have to break that habit before it can develop further. "Well, you said before that you wanted to get rid of all the Estraneo," he starts. "At least, you want to make sure none of them escape - that's the same thing, right? Uh, well, I've been thinking, you know, about what you said before - how some of the Estraneo in the lab escaped and they went to the other bases, or just disappeared into the - the underground." He looks up. Frowns. "If you think about it, the same thing might happen this time, too. Their base gets invaded, so they run away, and then end up causing some sort of trouble later on-"

"Not if we get rid of them all before they can do anything of the sort," Chun points out. Behind her, Ram looks oddly speculative.

"But while you're destroying one base, the other bases hear about how strong you guys are," his student argues. "And after a while, they'll realize you're too strong to defeat, and they'll - they'll make a run for it, won't they? Then you'd have to hunt them all down, but you guys only have four-five months in this world. Then it'll be our job to go looking for them and making sure that they - they don't do anything else." He shrugs. Reborn grudgingly allows a minuscule amount of pride to worm its way into his mind. "I mean, I don't know if it'll work out exactly like that or what the chances are of that happening, but if it does, won't that be - won't that be kind of a...a problem?"

His words falter near the end of the sentence, mostly due to the silent treatments Chun and Ram are giving him, combined with their wide-eyed scrutiny and eyes practically bleeding Christmas colors. "So, uh. That'll only happen if there are two of you, or just you guys and Mukuro's group. I was thinking, you know, wouldn't it be better if we took down all the bases at the same time? So none of them would be able to get away? It definitely takes more than a couple of people to take down a - a mafia base. Even with me and pretty much everyone else here, it probably won't be enough."

The brunet draws a breath. "The point is...is that if we're going to take down the Estraneo, we're going to need _so much help_. And that's not going to happen if you try to keep everyone out of danger. I don't think even me, my Guardians, and the rest of the people here will be enough. Besides, Reborn is right. This is our world - and don't get me wrong, I really appreciate the strength you guys have to offer - but we'll be prepared to take care of any enemy that comes our way. You guys already sound like you're facing your own responsibilities in the future, so after you get the cure for, uh, X-DEATH, you don't have to worry about us anymore. Unless-" His gaze skitters around the adults' faces. "-you haven't told us about some part of 'Operation X' that takes care of all this?"

Finally, his student has tapped into the wondrous power of thinking. It's a momentous day.

However, the home tutor can't say the same for Chun and Ram at the moment, which shows just how valid Tsuna's point is. Some of the onlookers hold their breath, captivated by the anticipation for their response.

After a pause that seems to stretch beyond the horizon line, Ram sighs. Groans. Pinches the bridge of his nose. Proclaims, "We actually didn't think of that."

Chun starts to laugh.

"_Merda_, stop it, Chun. Stop. We didn't-" He face-palms. Shoves the woman's shoulder. "Stop that. This is why we don't make the plans, they always end up having holes in them."

She leans back against the nearest wall, finds no wall to be mentioned, and ends up collapsing onto the steps of the front porch instead. "This boy's a genius," she announces. "That, or we're idiots. Maybe both. Maybe nothing! Why didn't we see this before?"

Ram shakes his head. Turns his attention back to Tsuna. "Thank you," he says, quieter than before. "That was...enlightening. And you're very right, we just haven't been thinking clearly."

Chun offers a nod. "It's a bit of our emotions in that, as well. We wouldn't want you hurt. But maybe we'll let you guys take up some responsibility if you're so sure of yourselves, yeah?" She grins.

Reborn resists the urge to smack them both over the head. Such incompetence can't possibly belong to the future Vongola. He was expecting a bit more adequacy than an operation that can apparently be contributed to by a teenage boss-in-training, even if it is his own student.

"We're doing this, then?" Ken asks, his hands twitching themselves into claw-like shapes. "We're fighting?"

Ram crumples on the spot and gives in to an invisible weight, easing himself delicately onto the steps next to Chun. "Yes," he says. "Apparently so. You have four months until we get access to the cure and around half a month more before we leave for our own world. Train hard enough, fast enough, and you'll be able to survive and win. We'll help you the best we can."

A question nags in the hitman's mind at his last words. "Why?" he voices out loud even as he filters through the possible answers. "Why do you want to help us? You'd think you'd be more eager to go back to your own world as soon as you get the cure." The events that occur in this world shouldn't have any effect on theirs, and yet - it is possible for them to want revenge by taking advantage of them in a time period where they're more vulnerable. He feels like he's missing something.

Their mouths twitch upward, suppressing their own amusement. "Idiot bastard," the cow huffs. "Why do you think?"

At his side, the assassin smiles. "We'll need to repay this world for saving us, won't we? And besides, we're Vongola."

A beat of silence drops. It is broken by Gokudera's befuddled muttering of 'what does that even mean', Sasagawa's ear-splitting cheers, a quiet murmuring from Tsuna that is too soft for most anyone to hear, and Mukuro's trademark laugh combined with his promise of 'we will not disappoint'. The eyes of his lackeys shine eagerly in their fervor. Reborn observes them in the shadow of his fedora, but his focus never leaves the two new harbingers of chaos; his intuition buzzes with ominous forewarning at the mere sight of them.

"A family of fools," Chun sings under her breath.

Reborn can't help...

* * *

_t.b.c_

cazzo - [profanity] (Italian)

vaffanculo - [profanity, translated closest to "fuck you" or something else along those lines] (Italian)

merda - [profanity] (Italian)

**Endnotes:** whew, massive info-dump there. i contemplated dividing all of it over a few chapters or so, but chun and ram wouldn't withhold information about any danger that threatens the vongola. as you can see, not a whole lot of good plot hahaha, plot is like the bane of my existence (:

if anything is still confusing: basically, ram and chun (twenty-years-later lambo and i-pin) used a bazooka to head back in time, because they need information on a cure that only exists in the past - and only for a short while. they didn't have time to tweak the bazooka, so instead of arriving only a few days before the estraneo develop the cure, they arrived a whole four months before the cure gets made. since they only have around four and a half months to hang around in the past, they're pretty hard-pressed on time, but things are still manageable. in other words, they have four months to train up and a half of a month to get the cure and defeat the estraneo.

anyway, POVs are really hard. i've been changing up my writing style ever-so-slightly for each character just for fun (and to match their thought processes). for instance, reborn's POV is more organized and coherent than chrome's or mukuro's. it's kind of a neat thing to experiment with.

there are two more chapters left until we move onto the arcs. chapter four is done, chapter five is...not. please look forward to next week and as always, thanks for reading!


	4. limb by limb

**Author's Commentary:** new, early chapter! thank you for your reviews, likes, and follows. (: and whew, look at that word count piling up.

* * *

...but agree - he's a complete idiot. This is going to go great. Wonderfully. Absolutely stellar. "I can't believe I'm about to do this," he voices out loud.

In the corner of his eye comes a blur of black, followed by a dull pain in the back of his head. Reborn touches back down in front of him and says, "Hurry up and make the call. A Vongola boss shouldn't be afraid to give orders to his subordinates."

He winces and removes his forehead from the tabletop, waves of exasperation and _how did I get into this_ crashing through his soul. "Reborn, the Varia aren't my _subordinates_."

"They will be one day," Reborn points out. "Now quit stalling. I shouldn't have to tell you that there aren't many other options besides this, Dame-Tsuna."

Internally grumbling, Tsuna makes to press the button. Then, he pauses (why does this have to be so nerve-wracking?) and casts quick glance over at the other side of the dining table, where Ram and Chun lounge loosely against the wall. The Lightning Guardian raises his eyebrows.

Tsuna sighs - this is such a _bad idea_ - and pushes the 'call' icon on the cellphone before bringing it up to his ear. The trilling tone sounds like his own funeral lament. He closes his eyes and reminds himself for what has to be the twentieth time that nobody can actually decapitate other people over the phone - not even Xanxus.

It's not that there's anything wrong with just _talking_ to the Varia leader, because - really, Tsuna's been faced with lots more intimidating people over the past few years. There's Mukuro, who came very close to killing his friends and still continues to threaten to possess him. There was the whole predicament in the future with Byakuran, who was by far one of the deadliest opponents he'd ever faced (if only because the Millefiore boss apparently killed dozens of his future allies and even his future self). And then, some time later, they fought against Enma and his Guardians and then the ghost of a man who seemed terrifyingly immortal in the heat of the battle.

And then when the Representative Battles came up, he was pitted up against his own allies, and that was the worst thing he's ever experienced - heart and body plummeting to meet the impossible scene in which all of his former enemies are _dead_, pouring wounds carved out of their sides and the mantra in his head that screamed _no, how could this happen, how could this _possibly happen?

They didn't die in the end (thank god), but Tsuna remembers all the fury that almost consumed him at the sight of the Bermuda and Jager - the horrible, terrible fear threatening to pull him right out of his Hyper Dying Will state. He'll always remember that feeling. Reborn once told him, after one of his semi-rare nightmares, that it's good to hold on to something like that, so long as it keeps reminding him what he's fighting for.

So Xanxus can throw knives at his head or scream and rage, or even corner him with his Flames of Wrath, and yet the fear of all those things combined will be practically _nothing_ compared to the fear the brunet felt in that fateful battle. It's been one year since the curse broke and he's slowly resigned himself to the Varia boss's flaring temper, although he can't bother himself to muster up enough energy to shriek and flee every time he witnesses it.

A part of him feels like he needs to be horrified by how desensitized to insanity he's become.

Anyway, the problem isn't talking to Xanxus. No, the problem is the fact that Tsuna's calling Xanxus to _arrange for a hit_ - like what actual hitmen do - and that really does bother him. Hiring assassin squads for assassinations is what mafia bosses do, and he doesn't want to be a mafia boss; he doesn't want to be the kind of boss that orders other people to kill. Now, here he is - playing mafia boss. How is his life even real?

Not to mention that the Varia barely see Tsuna as someone in a position to command them around. He really doubts Xanxus will take him seriously. The man only (half-)followed his plans during the Representative Battles because the common enemy - the Vindice - was staring at them right in the face, and anybody could see the wisdom in a team-up strategy after noticing the strength of what they were up against.

Tsuna will have to (somehow) convince Xanxus to obey him this time, just this once, because if he doesn't cooperate, they'll have to adjust their plans. They might not be able to cope without the backing of the Varia, and that would have to be one of the worst possible outcomes he can imagine.

The tone stops. A small click reverberates through Tsuna's eardrum.

A second later, Xanxus's voice - low, irritable, and harsh - travels through the line. "Who is it?"

The teenager takes a deep breath. "It's Tsuna. How are you?"

Somewhere in the background, glass shatters. Muffled cursing follows. "How the hell did you get this number, trash?" the Varia barks.

"Reborn gave it to me. Listen, Xanxus-" Tsuna pauses as a loud Italian cry (either Squalo is in the same room or his voice has managed to project itself several decibels louder than usual) echoes through the cellphone. He tries again, reinforcing the solemn tone in his voice. "Xanxus, I...I actually called because I need to talk to you about something important. Incredibly important."

"...Like what, trash?" He can almost imagine the sneer painted across the scarred face as he reclines in some lavish seat, a glass of wine cupped in a calloused hand and a phone clutched in the other.

"Okay." The brunet takes another breath, inhale and exhale. Straight to business it is. "First of all, I'd like Mammon over here in Namimori to mentor Mukuro."

A moment of silence ensues, and Tsuna dares to believe his request has taken Xanxus by surprise. "You want Mammon?" the man asks after a while. "Why the fuck for? Your Mist Guardian isn't wimpy enough for the baby trash to take care of him."

There was definitely a sliver of a compliment toward Mukuro's strength buried in that long line of slander, but Tsuna can't bother himself to think too hard about it. "Well...no," he says. "And it's not just Mukuro. I want Mammon to train Flan, as well. It's not that they're weak, they just..." He runs a hand through his hair. "They need to get stronger, and to do that, they're going to need someone who's strong enough to teach them."

"And why the hell are you telling me this, trash? I'm not playing messenger. Get the baby's number if you need him-"

Tsuna cuts him off. "I'm calling you to get your permission. I'll need Mammon in Namimori for four months."

His stomach clenches out of trepidation as another stretch of silence plays over the phone, this time loaded with a nervous, vibrating air. When Xanxus finally replies, the annoyance in his voice is spiked up a notch. "Four _months_? Are you even listening to yourself, trash?"

He throws up his free hand. "I know, I know - you'll be out of an illusionist for a while. But I'm willing to pay extra for the job, and I'll send him right back if you ever need him for an important mission."

Xanxus scoffs. "How much?"

"Am I paying him? Well..." For once, he's grateful Iemitsu has been sending home more money than usual these days to 'make up' for his constant absence. Thousands and thousands of yen finally being put to use. "At least twice more than what's average for these kinds of things, I guess. I'm willing to write a paycheck for the Varia deposit, as well, if you guys even have a shared account like that. And..." What else can he say? What else sounds convincing? "It's really important for Mammon to train them." Where to start, where to start-

"There's another reason why I called," Tsuna says before the other man can interrupt. "Have you heard of the Estraneo?" Xanxus shouldn't have been around when they 'disappeared' due to the Cradle Affair, but it's possible for him to have known about them before the event.

He can feel Xanxus's scowl, growing more pronounced by the second, aimed at him from across the continents. "I've heard about them," the Varia growls - meanwhile, something fragile shatters against a nearby surface. "Apparently, those weaklings got targeted by most of Italy for inventing some fucking bullet and were killed off a few years back. What the fuck do they have to do with anything?"

"They're alive," Tsuna says, meeting Chun and Ram's gaze from across the table.

When no immediate reply comes, he plows forward. "The Estraneo are alive. According to our...sources, they've got bases hidden in five different countries, they're still making their own inventions, and their next target is going to be the Vongola Famiglia." His fingers dig into the edge of his chair. "They're not going to attack immediately, but the threat is still there, and they've made themselves our...highest priority as enemies. I need you to..."

He trails off. His eyes dart back to the time-travelers.

Ram's jaded eye, tinted with the faintest shades of bright, harlequin green, lock onto his. Beside him, Chun nods, solemn and playful and approving all at once.

Tsuna tosses subtlety out the window and spills everything into the phone. He starts off the tedious explanation with the drug (X-DEATH, it was called), but tries not to linger on it too long because - if all goes as planned - Xanxus won't have to worry about that. He talks about the arrival of Lambo and I-Pin from twenty years in the future, where the Estraneo are causing enough trouble to force them to head back in time before things got any more drastic. And then he moves onto their revised version of 'Operation X', the version that has the highest probability of working out for everyone.

"The Estraneo have five different bases," he tells the ominously-silent Varia leader. "One of them is in the Sector - I mean, Nagano, right next to Namimori. But at our level, we're not strong enough to take _any_ of those bases on, which is why we'll need to use these four months to train. That's why Mammon needs to be here, because Mukuro and Flan want to get involved in the fighting and they're just not powerful enough yet - not according to Ram and Chun. And even after we _do_ get strong enough, the Estraneo bases will need to be destroyed all at once, or else they'll see our attacks coming and run away, just like they did before when Mukuro rebelled against them. The problem here is that my Guardians and I won't be able to take all of those bases at once, obviously, which is why..."

The brunet braces himself for his next words. "Which is why I'm giving the Varia a job."

"A job," Xanxus repeats, his tone unreadable. "You want us to help you get rid of the Estraneo trash."

He nods, despite the knowledge that the other man can't see it. "Exactly. In four months, I'll need you to attack one of their bases. We can handle the one in Nagano, but the others will have to be taken care of by you and Vongola's allied famiglie. It'll have to be a coordinated attack, and I need people who can manage it." He bites down on the apprehension knotting inside of him. "The Varia are an independent assassination squad, but they're - you're still tied to the Vongola. Will you do it?"

This time, the silence seems to go on for centuries. Tsuna opens his mouth, wondering whether or not to prompt Xanxus for an answer, but then the man's aggravated snarl runs down the line. "You don't need to remind us _who we are_, trash."

Tsuna frowns. Doubt plunges a cold hand through his heart.

A beat of silence, and then-

"Fine. We'll take the fucking job." The anger in the Varia leader's voice is unmistakable - directed toward whom, Tsuna isn't sure. "But only because you weaklings are too wimpy to deal with them on your own. You'll remember to pay us, trash?"

He coughs to cover a huff of laughter, relief snapping the threads of tension around his rib-cage. "Yeah, of course." _Good_, he thinks as Chun and Ram's faces quirk with mild satisfaction upon seeing him relax. This is good. Some things are going to be fine. "And you'll send down Mammon?"

Xanxus curses in Italian. The sound of a door slamming shut carries over the line. "Yes, scum, but you'd better send that baby trash back to Italy when we need to use him for a mission. Who else is involved in this?"

"Oh, uh-" Quickly, the brunet runs through them in his head. He hasn't actually told them anything yet, but they're - "The Chiavarone, the Gesso, and the Simon. Including you and us, that's five - so each one of us will take care of a base. We can work out the details later - we still have time, after all. And Xanxus - I want you guys to train in these next four months to prepare for the battle."

Immediately, Tsuna knows he's made a bad move, because an inkling of ire has entered the boss's voice. "Are you calling us fucking _weak_, scum?"

"No no no - I'm not, really, it's just-" In the midst of his fumbling, he sees Leon transform into a gun in the corner of his eye and hastily pulls himself together (lesson three, a Vongola boss must have the ability to stay calm in any and all situations). "The Estraneo are powerful enough to kill me and my Guardians with one hand tied behind their backs. Hypothetically, if you guys fought against them, you'd fair better because of your experience, but the difference in strength will still be there. You - You have to be _careful_. This entire operation will be a waste if you aren't able to-"

"Don't underestimate us, trash," Xanxus snaps, the background noise getting louder on his end. "We're not fucking incompetent like you and those other trashes. In case you've forgotten, we're assassins. We'll get your damn mission done." Tsuna has to pull his head away from the phone when a gunshot rings out and the man's furious voice roars (is it just him, or does he sound significantly angrier than usual?), "Shut the fuck up, you pieces of trash! Get out! Now!"

"VOOOI, YOU DAMN BOSS-"

The line goes dead.

After a suspended moment of disbelief, Tsuna lowers the phone and sinks back in his chair, boneless. "_Well_," he proclaims.

Ram raises his eyebrows. "Did he agree to train?"

"Yes. No. Maybe?" He throws up his hands. "He said not to underestimate them and that they'd get the job done." Either Xanxus hung up on purpose or ended up hurling the phone at the other Varia members - the latter seems slightly more plausible than the former.

Chun exchanges glances with Ram and says, "Xanxus is no fool. He and the others will grow stronger if they expect to survive, and their pride won't allow for failure." She tilts her head. "Mammon will come, won't he?"

"Yeah, so long as Xanxus can call him back whenever he likes."

"That'll do." The assassin peels herself off the wall and places a hand on her partner's shoulder. "Since that went moderately well, there shouldn't be any problems with the rest of them. We'll leave it to you." She turns toward the hall - and after a fraction of a second, Ram follows.

Tsuna huffs as Reborn places a slip of paper with another series of numbers in front of him and begins to dial them in. "Where are you going?" his tutor calls.

"Making some visits," Chun calls over her shoulder. "We'll be back before dinner, probably."

The door swings shut with a small bang. "Alright," the brunet says, flashing the phone screen at Reborn after having finished punching in the digits. "Whose number is this? Dino's?"

The infant shakes his head. "Lal Mirch."

He feels his own face pale. "Reborn, do I really have to make the harder calls first?"

Before his tutor can reply with an exasperated remark or head-blow, a sudden breeze against the back of his neck catches his attention. He twists in his seat to see Fon push the window open, hop inside, and take in the quiet scene. His eyebrows furrow - with what, disapproval? "Good afternoon. Weren't Chun and Ram with you?" the martial artist asks.

Reborn nods. "They were. You just missed them."

Tsuna watches as a frown flickers across the normally-serene Storm wielder's flames as he turns...

* * *

...away, his face tilted toward the jagged hole in the wall that currently acts as a window. "Mammon's strong. He's always been. And now that he's getting payed by Tsuna, he'll teach you well."

The apple-headed boy simply shrugs his shoulders, crouched in an absurd position on the floor with his toes wringing together. "The guy's my predecessor for the Varia Mist Guardian in the future, right? He doesn't like talking to me. He's mean. And he's a baby." The yawn that follows holds a vague resemblance to a dog's. "I don't think he's going to teach us anything worthwhile, Ram-san."

Mukuro chuckles under his breath and folds his hands underneath his chin. "I would have to agree," he says. "Mammon was beaten by Chrome and I during the Ring Battles, when both of us were considerably weaker than we are now. He does not best us in terms of power, at the very least. What makes you think we will learn anything useful?"

He narrows his eyes when the bull smiles, his halved gaze still focused on the patches of cyan sky outside. "Because he was underestimating you during the Ring Battles. Because he wasn't chosen as one of the Arcobaleno for no reason. Because he's an experienced fighter who can at least teach you more about Mist Flames, and so long as he's given an incentive, he can teach pretty well. Take your pick." The bull pauses in his memories - so sickeningly nostalgic, this one is. "And because he's trained you before."

"Oh?" He curls his lip. "In the future?"

"Yes. You grew a lot." An olive eye flickers in his direction. "It paid off."

After a long, long pause that is drawn out intentionally, the illusionist chuckles. If this horned man speaks true, they will have much to look forward to in the next four months. Only a couple of days have passed and he already tires of waiting, of playing lax in Kokuyo while the Estraneo build up their power. The Flames he has in store are no longer enough. The strength he holds now is no longer enough - the Flames running through his veins no longer feel...sufficient.

Mukuro will train, as will Ken and Chikusa. The others will do the same, because of their sentiments, but they are the ones with the truest purpose. The Estraneo will die, crushed beneath his very hands, staring at the number engraved into the crimson eye they bestowed upon him like the imbeciles they are, what a gift-

_-says the scar-man as one finger pushed down against his forehead. Straps encircled his ankles and wrists and something heavy presses against his chest; meanwhile, the white-haired man talks with the blue-woman, a scalpel spinning in his fingers like a merry-go-round. There is still blood shining on the trays and those white lab coats aren't so white anymore, and a knife is descending, and why won't they give him anything to numb the pain, why are they doing this, didn't they used to be-_

_-family, Lancia asks, and Mukuro just wants to tilt his head back and shriek with laughter at the dying innocence on that poor fool's face. Clearly, he does not know what the word 'family' means. He does not know that 'family' is nothing but knives and needles and tears that won't-_

_-spill, even as the cloaked beasts of humans called the Vindice drag him into the abyss, spouting out words of justice despite the sheer irony of their position as a mafia famiglia. How can there be such a thing called 'justice' when he is being imprisoned for simply wanting freedom after so many years of falling and seeing hell rush toward him at a nauseating speed (and mind you, it's starting to look terrifyingly close)-_

"What about the rest of us, pyon?" Ken asks, snapping Mukuro out of his stupor. "We're going to be trained by you and that China woman, right?"

The bull nods in affirmation. "It shouldn't be a problem for you, Ken, because you're fighting style focuses more on your physical attributes and not Flame-based techniques. Both of us can help you with that. As for Chikusa-" The boy lifts his head higher at the mention of his name. "-you use needles as projectiles, which Chun can work with. And if everything works out, Colonello will be coming soon to strengthen your Rain Flames. Hibari would-" He cuts himself off, darting rapidly between thoughts. "-no, perhaps. We'd have to see on that one.

"And as for M.M," he says before said girl can complain about being unfairly ignored. "You use Storm Flames. Chun can teach you close-combat with your nun-chucks. Once she can stop dancing around her master and strike a deal with him, Fon might be able to mentor you as well." Mukuro raises his eyebrows at the hinted conflict between the woman and the former Storm Arcobaleno, but refrains from commenting. What goes between them is not his immediate concern.

He catches sight of Chrome shifting on the couch, expression hidden beneath long sweeps of hair. _Useless girl_, his mind whispers.

To his mild surprise, a small part of his mind rebukes him. He doesn't know why it would, because it's true - she _is_ useless so long as she lives in that fraction of a body, riddled with holes where material organs used to be.

The bull reaches up to tug at the feathers in his hair. "The Arcobaleno, excluding Yuni and Verde, will be coming to teach the rest of Tsuna's Guardians. As you can see, Chun and I are going to have to juggle multiple apprentices, seeing as there are very few people besides the Arcobaleno who are at a high enough level to train you. That means you're going to have to work to get stronger, because we won't always be responsible for your own strength. Once the Estraneo see that X-DEATH doesn't work on us, they'll aim to kill. In terms of strength, we can beat them, but even Chun doesn't fight as...efficiently as they do. Four months won't be a whole lot of time. You'll need to manage somehow."

"How troublesome," Chikusa murmurs.

"Boss and the others got strong enough to defeat the Estraneo in less than a week," Chrome points out. Her voice is very small. "They can do it."

The slight sigh that comes from the bull seems to drain nearly half the air in his body. "That may be true, but the power they received were mostly upgrades or new techniques. Now, they need to become stronger physically, mentally, and their Flames need work in terms of capacity, purity, the maximum damage that can be delivered...and along with all that, the power gap is considerably larger." His mouth twists downward. "We can't stress enough just how strong the Estraneo are. If it's necessary, you can keep training until well after four and a half months, but-"

"-you'll be gone by then, and then we won't have you two for support," Chikusa finishes. "That'll leave us at a disadvantage. So there's no other way around this."

Ken snorts and clenches his fists. "Don't say it like that, kakipi! We're not going to waste these next four months." His face scrunches into a mass of hatred. "They'll pay for what they've done. We'll make them pay."

The bull shakes his head. "Those words are proof that you're far from being ready." And there are bits of weariness, a very peculiar sort of exhaustion leaden in his voice - what could have caused that, he wonders? And his voice is hushed, not in a loudness-softness sense, but in a way that is the star and not the sun, the syllable and not the word. Mukuro's mind spins with mysteries.

"Training starts as soon as Mammon, Colonello, and Lal Mirch arrive," the bull continues. "They should be here in a day or so - which will work out fine, seeing as Mukuro still needs to recover." A wry smirk tightens across his face. "We aren't nice mentors. Will you be ready?"

Will they be ready? Oh, that's right. He already knows the answer to that.

"Of course," Mukuro purrs.

There's no reason to worry. When the time comes, he will tear them...

* * *

...apart, limb by limb, for encroaching on school property. Trespassers and intruders are not tolerated in his encompassing presence, and due to his perseverance, the amount of drug-dealing and vandalizing around Namimori High's grounds has decreased from atrocious to a slightly-less-than-acceptable degree.

However, Kyoya doesn't plan to stop there - after all, he considers himself a perfectionist. When he first entered high school, he was appalled by the mediocrity of the herbivores crowding around him, and the prefect swore the moment he stepped into Namimori High that he would shape the place into an establishment fit for _proper academic teachings_ - not crime, nor ridiculous teenage drama. The only reason he didn't start setting down rules immediately was because his energy needed to be spent near Namimori Middle (even after his own graduation), as Sawada Tsunayoshi and the other herbivores needed constant supervision to prevent them from blowing up the entire school building with their antics.

A few years down the road, the herbivores graduated, and Kyoya could finally cancel most of his patrols around the middle school to focus on all of the damnable problems plaguing his current 'academic institution'. A Disciplinary Committee for the high school was set up, staff and students were bitten; he was even forced to buy a new pair of tonfas once his old pair grew too dull for his liking (caused by biting countless people to death).

Eventually, those pathetically-slow herbivores learned to remember their place instead of wandering off in all sorts of unruly directions - and slowly, his appetite was appeased as well.

It's unfortunate that imbeciles still exist in the world, imbeciles who still believe they can get away with loitering on the grounds after hours, or skittering around thinking he won't be able to sense them with his fine-tuned intuition. Kyoya only misses his potential prey when he is preoccupied by his patrols around the city, but even then, a silent alarm never fails to go off in the back of his mind whenever someone is breaking rules in his territory. There are times when a sudden ringing in his head is enough to urge him to head back to the school or out of his office and deal out a thrashing of well-deserved justice.

Now is one of those times.

Kyoya is sitting in his office reviewing a proposal for a club-related field trip when his intuition slams into him full-force. Irritation spikes through him, accompanied by the single-minded intensity of biting someone to death. Students should be taking a day off today - there is no justifiable reason for them to be lingering in the vicinity. He puts his pen back in the drawer, seizes the collar of his jacket, and slips the familiar grips on his tonfas into his hands (where they belong), lips thinned into a snarl.

A blast of cold air greets his appearance outdoors. Fingers curling around his weapons, he studies the atmosphere around him. Something is off. He can't quite grasp it, but there is a stirring in the wind too loud for his tastes, and the yawning space leading to the entrance gate of the school seems too quiet.

The trespasser is near. He can feel it.

In the distance, the shadows peeling off the trees meld with the one cast by an unknown figure. Kyoya watches as the stranger pauses, wavering in the rows of trunks near the side of the path, before flitting away in the direction of the parking lots.

As if running away would deter the prefect. Clearly, this herbivore must be new.

His boots flash across the pavement as he pursues the figure, grey eyes pinning his new prey in his line of sight. The sleeves of his jacket flutter behind him as he whips around a corner, the wind snagging at his heels and sweeping his hair back. Adrenaline pushes him faster, forces each stride to be swifter than the last. Wind howls in his ears as he sprints to catch up to the unruly herbivore ahead of him.

Twenty-six seconds into the chase, Kyoya realizes that, while he is slowly gaining on the herbivore, the two of them are very close to each other in speed. He lets out a small sound of discontentment and pushes himself harder.

Three seconds later, they leap down the stairs toward the tennis courts and bypass the chain-linked gates. The herbivore is close enough to be seen now; a long black braid, loose sleeves, loose pants, and an obi tied around her waist. No student stored in his memory seems to match the description, and his suspicions are confirmed when he notices her proportions - too matured to be a teenager enrolled at Namimori High, more of a young adult's body shape. She vaults over the fences and disappears around the edge of the building.

He catches sight of a smile on her face, which only serves to aggravate him further. No ordinary herbivore has escaped their punishment before. No matter how fleet-footed this one is, she will be no exception.

The prefect enters the courtyard in a flurry of black, white, and gold, murderous grey eyes darting around the arrangement of trees and grass patches. He skids to halt, boots sliding against the ground by sheer momentum.

A few meters in front of him, the herbivore stands tall and smiles the same vexing smile. Her easy breathing shows she isn't winded by the pursuit (then again, neither is he). "Kyoya," she greets.

His ire heightens at the use of his first name, but the matter of how she obtained such information can wait. Firstly - "No trespassers are allowed on school grounds," he says, leveling a glare cooler than the breeze surrounding them. "You will be bitten to death, herbivore."

"Hibari Kyoya." She appears to be completely disregarding his words. "I want to talk to you."

Sneering in his head, he grips his tonfas and settles into a fighting position, efficient for transitioning into fluid movements. His eyes map out his first targets - the legs, to cut her speed, preferably around the knee-cap area. He'll aim to break a bone this time, seeing as the herbivore isn't under the school's jurisdiction and therefore in no way under his own protection.

The woman's face alights with a conspicuous air of amusement - an emotion that threatens to tip him straight into battle before he can finish running through his next actions in his mind. "I wouldn't recommend what you're thinking of doing," she says. "You'll fail."

He smirks and gladly accepts the challenge.

A dash forward, maddening blood-lust pounding through his veins, and a harsh blow against the knees should have been enough to disable her. What he doesn't expect is the smooth back-step that allows her to barely avoid the swinging metal, followed by a duck of the head when he instinctively swipes at her temple. None of his attacks meet their mark, and she elegantly dances away.

Shaking the hair out of his eyes, the prefect withdraws for the moment, twirling his tonfas in his hand as he reviews the past couple of seconds.

This herbivore is fast - good reflexes and reaction time. Her movements blend together, each one following the same graceful 'line' carved out by another. Kyoya scowls almost imperceptibly as she extends her arms, both hands flat and palms exposed. Her legs root themselves firmly in the cobblestone ground.

That's a Shaolin form of Chinese martial arts.

Not an ordinary herbivore, then.

At the moment, her agility poses the largest threat. He lunges again, wary of her reaction, and feigns an attempt at her side before twisting around to lash out against her heel. The other tonfa lifted protectively against his side proves to be unnecessary as the herbivore merely dodges again, her body twisting to avoid the blows. He bares his teeth against his cheeks, scorn clouding his thoughts as he recognizes the subtle show of restraint.

He flips his tonfas, grasps the other ends, and rains down a barrage of attacks. She avoids them all, slipping through the tiniest of spaces. Howling slices of air follow their wake as he steps forward and she moves back, each motion more frequent and passionate than the last.

At last, Kyoya's weapon connects with a loud smack against the palm of the herbivore's hand. Prancing away from his follow-up attack, she spins away, the bones in her fingers being curiously intact. He narrows his eyes at the texture of the air and stares at the shimmering outline, thinly coated around her limbs. It seems Dying Will Flames are being put to use.

She's a mafioso, then. That revelation provides nothing substantial, since her occupation will be one of the last things that will matter once he's done with her. "Enough holding back, herbivore," the prefect says, not bothering to hide the contempt in his tone. "I'll bite you to death."

Her face quivers with a flurry of emotions before deciding on a smile (one that has somehow become even more obnoxious in the space of a single minute). "Enough talking, skylark. It's not like you."

He scoffs at her. Swift she may be, but calling her a herbivore would come very close to being a compliment; he might as well label her something more inferior, like foliage. The nagging question about how she might know what's 'like him' can be put on hold in favor of this beating. With that thought, he descends again in a whirlwind of black and steel, tonfas spinning an endless wheel in his fingers.

She dodges again, as predicted, but Kyoya would not be a carnivore if he didn't know temperance. He waits until she turns her head, pulls back the beam of steel heading toward her collar-bone, and seizes a fist-full of black, braided hair.

His lips curl even as he braces his foot behind him, a half-second away from dragging her backward. _Got you._

That confident thought doesn't last long.

Moving at a speed he swears is faster than lightning, the herbivore's grin goes from several feet away to being _right there_ _right in front of him_, eyes suddenly blood-red and gleaming with the reflection of his own murderous intent. A hand comes at him, straight for his skull, he needs to _move away right now move away quickly_-

Kyoya twists his head to the side with a force that nearly snaps his own neck, something very close to panic (which is absurd) twisting inside his gut. The herbivore's hand shoots out and pulls back, imitating the movement of a snake. As he flounders for the briefest of moments, a burning hand clenches around his wrist, digging against the veins and forcing his fingers open without mercy. Then, dull pain sears across his chest as he is pounded backward, his body folding inward from the impact.

He staggers back.

Appraising him from afar, she smiles and beckons him, completely unaffected by his returning glare. "Again," she prompts him.

The prefect recovers and begins to circle the herbivore again, this time more wary than before. He's not one to quail beneath another's killing intent, but the lethal aura surrounding this new enemy is more prominent now that she's proven to have some level of skill. Her swiftness is something to be cautious of - however, he will not be caught off guard again. Not this time.

He looks the herbivore up and down, a strange thought striking him. She could have gone for the kill while he was still winded. She wouldn't have succeeded, of course, but she certainly had the opportunity to make a finishing blow.

So, why not?

He has no more time to think as his prey goes on the offensive. Immediately, he gathers his Cloud Flames and lets them burst out of his tonfas, just as the herbivore's forearm slams into them. Sparks fly in purples and reds - he catches sight of the Flames around her skin being forced to manifest from the contact before both of them pull away. Then, he is subjected under a series of attacks that keep him concentrated enough to barely - just barely - block each one. The prefect grits his teeth as his tonfas are tugged into tight, coiled positions, allowing no room for his own counter-attack.

She spins around in a wheel of colors, and Kyoya can't stop her boot from connecting with his fingers and sending one of his tonfas clattering to the ground. The move leaves a stinging feeling all throughout his hand and tremors running down to his elbow.

Now, he's left with a half of his primary weapon missing, and put against an abnormally-strong herbivore whom he has stupidly underestimated. More fool him.

He needs to act - quickly.

A long, hooked chain shoots out of his remaining tonfa toward the woman, forcing her to side-step. Meanwhile, Flames explode around the abandoned tonfa as it expels a series of wires that latch onto the other half of the pair in his hands, connecting them together. The wires recede, pulling his weapons together, and he catches the steel beam as it flies toward his face - effectively reuniting the pair. It's an improvised trick, but it works.

With that, Kyoya allows multiples of thorns to grow along the sides of his tonfas. The sharp glint of their points, glimmering with a violet sheen from his Cloud Flames, should be enough to instill a sense of fear in the herbivore.

She takes a few steps back, allowing a second lull of silence to interrupt the battle. To his annoyance, her smile never drops. "Again."

_Enough of this_, Kyoya decides. He moves forward.

He sees a blinding flash of red.

A leg sweeps across the backs of his knees, a palm presses against his side, and then his entire world is spinning. The prefect registers the feeling of the ground pressing against his shirt before his tonfas are pushed aside - again - and his hand is twisted into an uncomfortable shape against the lower portion of his back. Pressure is applied to the back of his neck, most likely by an elbow.

The entire sequence takes place in a period of two-and-a-half seconds.

He coughs out a breath and ignores the rising tempo of his heartbeat rate.

How did that even happen? How did that even-?

No, questions are no longer relevant. He needs to escape immediately.

The fingers pressing against his trapped hand are relentless. His other arm won't amount to much if the rest of his body isn't freed. The elbow against his neck is a killing threat, clear as day. He can still get out of this, though. The key, at this point, would be to overwhelm her with Dying Will Flames, which he would have to channel without using his tonfas. Luckily, such a feat isn't impossible for him - difficult to control, yes, but not impossible.

By expelling a large amount of Flames, he has a high chance of throwing the herbivore off - but then what? As loath as he is to admit it, this woman is capable of destroying him with nothing more than her speed. Normally, his pride wouldn't let him run (only herbivores are supposed to run), but in this case-

"I came here to talk, skylark," the herbivore declares, disrupting his whirlwind of thoughts. "In fact, this is a pretty important discussion we should be having. You'd best surrender now, seeing as I'm really not too keen on hurting you, and it'd be a shame if it came to that. You'll listen, won't you?"

He frowns at the ground. "Or what?" Kyoya demands.

He doesn't need to see her face to know that a smile is already present. "Or we can go again."

At first, the threat means nothing.

Then, the prefect repeats the words in his head and reviews the fight. In the first 'round', he takes semi-harmful blows, which will result in insignificant - but existent - bruises. The second time, he comes very close to being completely disarmed. This third time, he is completely incapacitated.

Predictably, if they do 'go again', the match will not end in his favor. Kyoya can predict, if not his death, than a serious injury heading his way if he doesn't back down now. Irritation sours his beaten pride further. The choice he ought to make is quite obvious and perfectly logical, and yet, to admit defeat to this _trespasser_-

"Will you listen?"

Again, he reminds himself that the best choice is quite obvious. Perfectly logical. Hiding the fury simmering beneath his skin, he does his best to nod.

The pressure against his neck and arm is released. He leaps to his feet and pinpoints his tonfas lying a couple of meters away, but refrains from retrieving them. Any action at this point could be perceived as a threat by the herbivore, and while he'd much prefer his weapons at his side, they've agreed to do nothing more than...communicate. Which he isn't actually eager to do.

He still wants to bite the trespasser to death, but the blood-lust has already begun to recede a little. It leaves a hollow feeling inside.

"You're the one who told me not to hold back, you know," the herbivore says, her gaze fixated on an unknown point in the distance. "I still did hold back, of course, but not as much." Her attention appears to be held by the patches of clouds hovering above the horizon. "Good fight, skylark."

"Who are you?" the prefect asks, beginning to dislike their little chat already.

"I-Pin," she replies without missing a beat.

Kyoya's thoughts transition from surprise, to disbelief, and then to impatience. "Who are you?" he repeats. He can't find it in himself to bother with false, elusive, confusing answers spoken only for the sake of it - a certain aggravating Mist user comes to mind. How this herbivore even knows about the small assassin, or why she would dare to use her name as a cover, is beyond him.

She shoots him a humorous glance. "No, really. I'm I-Pin. Lambo and I came back from twenty years into the future with the Twenty Year Bazooka. It was a modified Ten Year, a better version, but you're probably not interested in all that." Her smile sobers. "Listen to me, skylark. Namimori is in danger."

The prefect feels his shoulders stiffen involuntarily at the words 'Namimori' and 'danger' in the same sentence. "What do you mean?"

"In four months, Tsuna and his Guardians will be leading an attack against the Estraneo Famiglia." She flashes an out-of-context grin. "Heard of them?"

He has. Kyoya can recall the name being spoken in hushed voices by the girl taken under Rokudo Mukuro's wing, along with the grieving undertones that follow it. He himself started keeping tabs on the mafia even before Reborn arrived in Namimori, and the Estraneo - the Italian word for 'stranger' - has been mentioned a couple of times by Tetsuya when the subject of discussion revolved around previous criminal activity. He nods, albeit slowly.

Not to mention that Rokudo Mukuro, Joshima Ken, and Kakimoto Chikusa are the former test subjects of that particular organization, all of whom escaped five years ago and wiped out their captors in the process. "The Estraneo no longer exist," he says. "They haven't existed in five years." He's had just about enough of this woman spitting out lies and false claims. "Don't think you can fool me, herbivore."

She folds her arms behind her back and begins to prowl a circle around the prefect. "The Estraneo have been existing for quite a while now, actually," she informs. "They've just been in hiding. And they're pretty good at hiding, you know."

For a moment, he is taken aback. "The herbivores should have killed-"

"-them all off, is that right?" The trespasser shrugs her shoulders. "Oh, they tried, of course, but they were just kids. It's no surprise they didn't do a very good job of it. They missed a few members of their upper echelon, you see, and that just made all the difference." Her steps mimic that of a carnivore's, each one soft and purposeful. "Currently, the Estraneo are alive and they're planning an attack on the Vongola. At this point in time, they're vulnerable because they aren't suspecting that we know about their plans. Tsuna and his Guardians, along with a few of his friends, are going to launch an attack on them in four months before they lose their chance."

Kyoya decides to ponder this information later and moves on briskly. "Why four months?"

"The Estraneo's primary weapon is a drug called X-DEATH. In four months, there will be a week-long period in which a cure for this drug will become available. After this time period, it will be destroyed. Shortly after, Lambo and I will be forced to return to our world because of the bazooka's limitations. Tsuna's goal is to attack and destroy all of the Estraneo's bases in the span of time between the day the cure is created and the day we need to return. That's a little less than half a month. He'll need the cure because most of them won't be able to survive without it in the end, and he'll need us because we're strong and armed with the knowledge of the future." She hums a little. "That's the summarized version, anyway.

"Four months from now, Tsuna will need you to fight alongside him. You're the strongest Guardian. With you, at least, they'll have a massive advantage against the Estraneo - or so we predict."

After a stretch of tense silence, the prefect pins her with an expression of utter disinterest that he perfected at the age of six. The opponents she mentioned sound strong, but he has no desire to fight with the crowd. She's done nothing more but waste her time explaining all of this to him. "No."

To her credit, the herbivore does not react further than the arching curve of her eyebrows. "I just told you about the most dangerous enemy Namimori will probably ever encounter. How can you say 'no'?"

His eyes harden coldly as he adjusts the image of this trespasser to someone close-minded and pathetic, a person who has made too many assumptions and is used to having her wishes fulfilled and presented on a silver platter. "The Estraneo are the herbivores' problem. Namimori plays no role in this."

That said, Kyoya picks up his tonfas and turns back in the direction of his office. He contemplates biting the herbivore to death and finds the idea tempting. However, he has paperwork to finish, and this one doesn't seem to be worth his time anymore. Now that he's silently dismissed her, she will leave. That's how her kind works. That's how the _mafia_ works.

"Wait," she says as he walks away. "Wait. You're not listening, skylark."

He ignores her and bites down on the urge to commit homicide.

"Tsuna and his friends protect Namimori. The Vongola protects Namimori. They might die if you aren't there to support them, do you realize that?"

What a ridiculous notion. Kyoya and the Disciplinary Committee has always protected Namimori - those herbivores are usually the ones wreaking havoc. Besides, herbivores they may be, but none of them are weak enough to die so easily. This entire conversation was a waste of time and energy.

She tries again. "I really don't want to tell you this. Time-traveling has rules, you know? We're not supposed to reveal anything unnecessary about the future. It could change things beyond our control, skylark - don't do this, don't force my hand this time."

The herbivore is spouting nonsense. He does his best to tune it out.

She raises her voice. "In our time, Namimori is dead."

He pauses, turns her head, and then - after second thought - turns around completely. Apparently, doing his best to tune out her words isn't tuning them out enough.

Her smile gains a sudden, mocking edge. "The entire city is under the Estraneo's control. Even the yakuza don't go near that place anymore, what with civilians mysteriously disappearing to aid the Estraneo underlings in their little experiments, and a few serial killers running about testing their prototype weapons for them. Namimori is dead, you see. The only thing left of it is a carcass turned into an oversized mafia base that even your Disciplinary Committee had to evacuate from, because the options were either run or die, and dying is not something noble.

"Of course, we've only heard about this from outside sources. Lambo and I haven't set foot in our hometown in four years. It'd be suicide, going back there." She shakes her head, cool gaze never straying from Kyoya's stricken face. "Do you understand, skylark? Namimori is a target. It has always been a target."

For a long minute, he can't even gather up enough of his wits to reply.

Namimori is his charge, in a sense. The Hibari family is known for being territorial - his own parent practically gave the city to him after he proved himself worthy of it and grew strong enough to fend for himself, as if his entire childhood was meant to lead up to that inheritance. She left soon after his graduation from elementary school to return to her own grounds in some obscure part of China, leaving behind a phone number and the name of her relative location, and still calls on the holidays and other special occasions.

Despite the absence of his guardian, Kyoya is content with their relationship; he understands the need for carnivores like themselves to guard and protect, and now that he has grown up, neither of them would be comfortable sharing space with each other without feeling compelled to bite the other to death. (Their lifestyle is considered unusual to most herbivores - Kyoya couldn't care less about their lack of comprehension.)

This place that was passed down to him is full of crowding herbivores, loud noises, unruly delinquents, and more crowding herbivores. There are days when he questions his sanity after witnessing _yet another_ incident relating to Sawada Tsunayoshi or the Vongola's pandemonium. He patrols the streets and sometimes wonders if all members of the Hibari family have so much difficulty keeping peace in their own lands.

In spite of that, _the point_ is that Namimori is _his_. The herbivores would not survive without _his_ protection, the criminals are _his_ to devour, and - although he would never admit it out loud - Sawada Tsunayoshi is the one person he can rely on to protect the crowds that stray when he himself cannot.

The city is his. The idea that he has failed to keep it in the future is unacceptable.

His temper boils. A part of him wants to believe this trespasser is playing him, but his intuition tells him otherwise, and his intuition has never been wrong.

"Skylark."

"Are you lying?" the prefect finally asks. It is, for all purposes, a meaningless inquiry. He finds that he still wants to hear her answer.

She smiles again. "No. Not for this."

"If the herbivores' attack fails, Namimori will-"

"Suffer the same fate, yes."

He lets out a long breath through his nose before meeting the herbivore's gaze. "You are I-Pin from the future." It's hardly even a question so much as it is a statement.

"Yes, and Lambo came back with me." She shrugs her shoulders. "By the way, we've already informed Tsuna, Reborn, all of the Guardians, and Mukuro's group. Also, the Varia, Chiavarone, Simon, and Gesso, and a few of the Arcobaleno should be enlightened after Tsuna's done making his calls. They'll be helping you fight." She notices the mutinous look on his face and adds, "Not all of them together, that is. There are five Estraneo bases, each one on a different country, and everyone will be splitting themselves up to take care of all of them. We can decide the groupings any time during this little four-month-long preparation, you know, so there's no big rush."

The herbivore folds her hands against her stomach, her glittering eyes sculpted out of carmine. "So what will it be?"

Kyoya considers. He makes his decision in the span of five seconds. The choice is simple - almost too easy.

"Four months," he repeats, trying to imagine Namimori swarming with criminals and void of his own men. He clenches his tonfas until his knuckles turn white from the strain. "I will be ready."

The skin around her eyes seems to crinkle. "Excellent."

He gives a last lingering glance at the enigma of a woman, scoffs silently, and continues his walk back to his office. A headache is already beginning to build. "Keep me informed," he orders over his shoulder. "And do not trespass on school grounds again, herbivore."

The herbivore's breathless laughter bubbles up from behind, growing fainter as he strides...

* * *

_t.b.c._

no translations this time.

**Endnotes:** so hibari showed up. hahahaha i never did forget about him or anything lady ariadna, i was just waiting for the opportunity to introduce him (: anyway, he's spawned a slightly different writing style for his POV and a very lacking fight scene (something i should work on a bit more, huh).

chapter five is being more difficult than it should be, mainly due to my focus being redirected toward another writing project, so this fanfiction - which unfortunately doesn't rank highest on my priority list - will slow down on updates just a little as i balance my time between this and my other works.

anyway, thank you very much for reading! the reviews i've gotten so far are precious and i hope you guys keep looking forward to the end (and everything before it). (:


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